Game Theory

Sociologyindex, Books On Game Theory, Sociology Books 2012, Game Theory

Game theory develops general mathematical formulas and algorithms to identify optimal strategies and to predict the outcome of interactions.

Game Theory is the science of strategy and attempts to determine what actions different players such as trading partners, employers, unions or even organised crime groups should take to secure the best outcome for themselves.

Game theory studies strategic interaction in competitive and cooperative environments. Only fifty years old, it has already revolutionized economics, and is spreading rapidly to a wide variety of fields including conflict and war. Oskar Morgenstern and mathematician John von Neumann also contributed immensely. Game theory applied to penalty kicks in a tie-breaker

Nobel laureates John Nash, Robert Aumann and Thomas Schelling have done pioneering work in the field of game theory.

The 2005 Nobel prize for economics was given to Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann for their work on "game theory", for work that found uses in "security and disarmament policies, price formation on markets, as well as economic and political negotiations."

Robert Aumann has been cited for his analysis of "infinitely repeated games" to identify what outcomes can be maintained over time. "Insights into these issues help explain economic conflicts such as price wars and trade wars, as well as why some communities are more successful than others in managing common-pool resources." Robert Aumann believes that "game theory had become a cornerstone of economics worldwide.

"I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general" - Robert Aumann.

On winning the Nobel prize Robert Aumann has said "This is a badge of honour for this branch of science, for game theory."

Thomas Schelling who has said "I'm not really a game theorist" has applied game theory to global security and the cold war arms race. Thomas Schelling has also used examples from everyday life, such as the difficulty in trying to get ice-hockey players to overcome their fear of being at competitive disadvantage and wear helmets, even though it would protect their heads.

Game Theory Society - Founded in January 1999, the society aims to promote the investigation, teaching and application of game theory. gametheorysociety.org/intro.html

Game theory applied to penalty kicks in a tie-breaker

Ever heard of sportsmen applying a combination of economics and mathematics to win the game. Game Theory was originally devised to help anything from pay negotiations to waging war. Morgenstern and von Neumann didn’t target footballers or gamblers.

‘World Cup Game Theory,’ an article in Slate magazine, decodes Game Theory and analyses how it works.

Using Game Theory we can mathematically analyse ‘‘situations of strategic interaction, that is, any situation where participants have to take into account the other side’s responses. Here, strategic interaction would be a soccer penalty, not a free throw in basketball. the strategic question could be translated into Game Theory’s mathematical language, solved like any old mathematical problem, and then translated back into the real world to explain what to do.

Tim Harford, author of bestselling 'The Undercover Economist' highlights this with an example. ‘‘Let’s say a right-footed striker always shoots to the right. The keeper will always anticipate the shot and the striker would be better off occasionally shooting to the left, because even with a weaker shot it is best to shoot where the goalie isn’t.

On the other hand, if the striker chooses a side by tossing a coin, the keeper will always dive to the striker’s left: Since he can’t guess where the ball will go, best to go where the shot will be weak if it does come. But then the striker should start favouring his stronger side again.’’

It is in such a situation that Game Theory works, a ‘‘mathematical description of how all the possible payoffs to the different players vary with their different strategies — so if the goalkeeper jumps to his left while the striker shoots to the keeper’s right, the striker will get a high payoff and the goalkeeper will get a low one.’’

He explains that if the striker and the keeper are behaving optimally, neither will have a predictable strategy. The striker might favour his stronger side, of course, but that does not mean that there will be a pattern to the bias. The striker might shoot to the right two times out of three, but we cannot then conclude that it will have to be to the left next time. each choice of shot should be equally likely to succeed, weighing up the advantage of shooting to the stronger side against the disadvantage of being too predictable.
If shots to the right score three-quarters of the time and shots to the left score half the time, you should be shooting to the right more often. Shots to the right will become less successful and those to the left more successful. It might sound strange that at this point any choice will do, but it is analogous to saying that if you are at the summit of the mountain, no direction is up.

Books On Game Theory

Evolutionary Game Theory, Natural Selection, and Darwinian Dynamics
Book by Thomas L. Vincent, Joel S. Brown
Darwinian dynamics and evolutionary game theory. The evolutionary game theory developed in this book provides the tools necessary for understanding many of nature's mysteries.

Game Theory and Politics Book by Steven J. Brams
Using real-life examples, Brams shows how game theory can explain and elucidate complex political situations, from warfare to presidential vetoes. In these cases and others, game theory’s mathematical structure provides a rigorous, consistent method for formulating, analyzing, and solving strategic problems.

Game Theory : A Nontechnical Introduction Book by Morton D. Davis
Lucid coverage of the two-person zero-sum game with equilibrium points; the general, two-person zero-sum game; utility theory; other topics.

Game Theory for Applied Economists
Book by Robert Gibbons
Robert Gibbons addresses scholars who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works overly abstract.

Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict
Book by Roger B. Myerson
An Elegant and Deep Treatment.
To find the best way to present various materials, I went through virtually every game theory book in existence. For the presentation of the basic material on normal and extensive form games, nothing even came close to this book in clarity of presentation and depth of understanding of the issues. - H. Gintis (Northampton, MA USA)

An Introduction to Game Theory Book by Martin J. Osborne
Osborne's book is the most complete introduction to game theory available.

A Course in Game Theory Book by Martin J. Osborne, Ariel Rubinstein
A Course in Game Theory presents the main ideas of game theory at a level suitable for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, emphasizing the theory's foundations and interpretations of its basic concepts.

Game Theory Evolving Book by Herbert Gintis
First extensive treatment in a textbook of evolutionary game theory. A major contribution to the teaching of game theory.

Behavioral Game Theory : Experiments in Strategic Interaction (The Roundtable Series in Behavioral Economics) Book by Colin F. Camerer
Game theory, the formalized study of strategy, began in the 1940s by asking how emotionless geniuses should play games, but ignored until recently how average people with emotions and limited foresight actually play games.
While there are many books on standard game theory that address the way ideally rational actors operate, Behavioral Game Theory stands alone in blending experimental evidence and psychology in a mathematical theory of normal strategic behavior.

The Survival Game : How Game Theory Explains the Biology of Cooperation and Competition
Book by David P. Barash
From Publishers Weekly
Game theory attempts to explain the dynamics of life as a series of individual games, each involving specific moves that take place within a strictly delineated set of rules.

Game Theory at Work: How to Use Game Theory to Outthink and Outmaneuver Your Competition
Book by James D. Miller
Easy-to-Follow Strategies for Using Game Theory to Grab the Upper Hand in Every Business Battle. Game theory--the study of how competitors act, react, and interact in the strategic pursuit of their own self-interest--has become an essential competitive tool in today's business arena. Game Theory at Work provides examples of how businesspeople can use this time-proven approach to successfully meet competitive challenges and, more often than not, claim the upper ground in each battle before it begins.

Classics in Game Theory Book by Harold William Kuhn (Editor)
Review
This volume assembles in one sourcebook the basic contributions to the field of game theory.
Classics in Game Theory assembles in one sourcebook the basic contributions to the field that followed on the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern (Princeton, 1944). Harold Kuhn, himself a major contributor to game theory for his reformulation of extensive games, has chosen eighteen essays that constitute the core of game theory as it exists today.

Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 1: Playing Fair
Book by Ken Binmore
In Game Theory and the Social Contract, Ken Binmore argues that game theory provides a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters. His reinterpretation of classical social contract ideas within a game-theoretic framework generates new insights into the fundamental questions of social philosophy.
Binmore shows how ideas drawn from the classic expositions of Harsanyi and Rawls produce a synthesis that is consistent with the modern theory of noncooperative games.

Game Theory and the Law
Book by Douglas G. Baird, Robert H. Gertner, Randal C. Picker
This book popularizes and extends a new approach (non-cooperative game theory) to the economic analysis of law.

Advances in Understanding Strategic Behaviour : Game Theory, Experiments and Bounded Rationality Book by Steffen Huck (Editor)
In their variety they reflect an entire spectrum of coexisting approaches: from orthodox game theory via behavioral game theory, bounded rationality and economic psychology to experimental economics.

Handbook of Game theory Book by L. A. Petrosjan (Editor), V. V. Mazalov (Editor)

Models in Cooperative Game Theory : Crisp, Fuzzy, and Multi-Choice Games (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems) Book by Rodica Branzei, Dinko Dimitrov, Stef Tijs
This book investigates models in cooperative game theory in which the players have the possibility to cooperate partially.

Introducing Game Theory and its Applications Book by Elliot Mendelson
The first text to present a simple, intelligent guide to game theory, this book introduces concepts from areas such as economics using applications, game theoretic notions, and research results. It contains a review the material on probability that readers need prior to taking a course on game theory.

Gaming the Market : Applying Game Theory to Create Winning Trading Strategies (Wiley Finance)
Book by Ronald B. Shelton
Gaming the Market: Applying Game Theory to Create Winning Trading Strategies is the first book to show investors how game theory is applicable to decisions about buying and selling stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, and options.
In Gaming the Market, economist Ronald B. Shelton provides a model that enables traders to predict profitability and, as a result, make effective buy and sell decisions. Stated simply, game theory is the study of conflict based on a formal approach to decision making that views decisions as choices made in a game. Shelton offers real-world examples that reveal how the principles of game theory drive financial markets - and how these same principles can be used to develop winning investment strategies.

Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications Volume 3 (Handbooks in Economics)
Book by R. J. Aumann, S. Hart
Journal of Economic Literature
This is the third volume of the Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications.

Game Theory: A Critical Text Book by Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap, Yanis Varoufakis
Provides a clear explanation for the enduring popularity of game theory and its increasing centrality to the teaching of economics.

Game Theory and Economic Analysis (Routledge Advances in Game Theory) Book by Christian Schmidt (Editor)
Presents a huge variety of current contributions of game theory to economics. Original pieces of work that are significant to game theory as a whole. Taking the reader through a concise history of game theory, the connections between Von Neumann's mathematical game theory and the domain assigned to him today.

A Game Theory Analysis of Options: Contributions to the Theory of Financial Intermediation in Continuous Time Book by Alexandre Ziegler
This book presents a method that combines game theory and option pricing in order to analyze dynamic multiperson decision problems in continuous time and under uncertainty. The basic intuition of the method is to separate the problem of the valuation of payoffs from the analysis of strategic interactions. The former can be handled using option pricing and the latter can be addressed by game theory. How both instruments can be combined and how game theory can be applied to complex problems of corporate finance and financial intermediation.

Game Theory And Applications Book by L. A. Petrosjan (Editor), V. V. Mazalov (Editor)

Thomas Schelling and the Nuclear Age: Strategy as Social Science (Strategy and History)
Book by Robert Ayson
Thomas Schelling (Nobel Laureate 2005 for Economics) has made some of the most distinctive contributions to strategic studies in the age of nuclear weapons.

Decision Making using Game Theory : An Introduction for Managers Book by Anthony Kelly
Game theory is a key element in most decision making processes involving two or more people or organizations. This book explains how game theory can predict the outcome of complex decision making processes, and how it can help to improve negotiation and decision-making skills. Text explains how game theory can predict the outcome of complex decision-making processes.

Zero-sum games (Teaching & research materials) Book Thomas C Schelling (Nobel Laureate 2005 for Economics)

Prospectus for a reorientation of game theory (P-1491) Book Thomas C Schelling (Nobel Laureate 2005 for Economics)

The reciprocal fear of surprise attack (P-1342)
Book Thomas C Schelling (Nobel Laureate 2005 for Economics)

Collected Papers Book by Robert J. Aumann
Robert Aumann's groundbreaking career in game theory has spanned over 35 years.

Repeated Games with Incomplete Information Book by Robert J. Aumann
Robert Aumann, Michael Maschler, and Richard Stearns collaborated on research on the dynamics of arms control negotiations that has since become foundational to work on repeated games. The basic model studied throughout the book is one in which players ignorant about the game being played must learn what they can from the actions of the others.
The original work, done under contract to the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, was intended to tackle the gradual disarmament problem, in which neither player knew what his own payoff would be for any given agreement, because of uncertainty about the other side's arsenal and weapons production technology.

Topics in Mathematical Economics in Game Theory: Essays in Honor of Robert J. Aumann (Fields Institute Communications, V. 23.) Book by Myrna H. Wooders (Editor)
Provides a collection of essays in mathematical economics and game theory, including cutting-edge research on noncooperative game theory and its foundations, bargaining theory, and general equilibrium theory. Illustrates the wide range of applications of mathematics to economics, game theory, and social choice.

Game Theory for Political Scientists Book by James D. Morrow
Review
Provides the best account of ideas from game theory tailored to the interests of political scientists, which is currently available. Game theory is the mathematical analysis of strategic interaction. James Morrow's book is the first to provide a standard text adapting contemporary game theory to political analysis. It uses a minimum of mathematics to teach the essentials of game theory.
Morrow begins with classical utility and game theory and ends with current research on repeated games and games of incomplete information. The book focuses on noncooperative game theory and its application to international relations, political economy, and American and comparative politics.

Game Theory with Economic Applications (2nd Edition)
Book by H. Scott Bierman, Luis Fernandez
Emphasizes the application of game theoretical tools to understand important economic phenomena. Covers applications in the fields of labor economics, international trade, environmental economics, industrial organizations and more. Paper. DLC: Game theory.

Decision Analysis, Game Theory, and Information (University Casebook Series) (August, 2004)
Book by Louis Kaplow, Steven Shavell
"Decision Analysis, Game Theory, and Information" is a spin-off title from a new casebook written by a team of Harvard Law professors, "Analytical Methods for Lawyers," which was written to provide law students with an overview of basic business and finance principles necessary for the study of law.

Game Theory and Strategy (New Mathematical Library)
Book by Philip D. Straffin
Mathematical Reviews
The author has succeeded in producing an outstanding introductory textbook on game theory for an interdisciplinary audience at the college level. 'Game Theory and Strategy is an elegant, crystal-clear expository work.

Game Theory for Applied Economists

Game Theory Analysis of Conflict

An Introduction to Game Theory

A Course in Game Theory

Game Theory Evolving

Behavioral Game Theory

The Survival Game

Game Theory at Work

Classics in Game Theory

Game Theory and Social Contract

Game Theory and the Law

Handbook of Game theory Nova Science