Introduces the game-theoretic approach of modelling economic behaviour and interaction, focusing on concepts and ideas from the field of game-theoretic models which find commonly used applications in economics. This book provides the reader with skills necessary to formalize economic games and to make them accessible for game theoretic analysis.

An introduction to one of the most powerful tools in modern economics Game Theory for Applied Economists introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience: those who will later construct or consume game-theoretic models. Robert Gibbons addresses scholars in applied fields within economics who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works too abstract. Gibbons emphasizes the economic applications of the theory at least as much as the pure theory itself; formal arguments about abstract games play a minor role. The applications illustrate the process of model building—of translating an informal description of a multi-person decision situation into a formal game-theoretic problem to be analyzed. Also, the variety of applications shows that similar issues arise in different areas of economics, and that the same game-theoretic tools can be applied in each setting. In order to emphasize the broad potential scope of the theory, conventional applications from industrial organization have been largely replaced by applications from labor, macro, and other applied fields in economics. The book covers four classes of games, and four corresponding notions of equilibrium: static games of complete information and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games of complete information and subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, static games of incomplete information and Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and dynamic games of incomplete information and perfect Bayesian equilibrium.

Comprises lectures given at Tel Aviv University and Oxford University in 1990.

This book uses game theory to explain conflict between individual self-interested behavior and cooperation in economic markets, lawsuits, and legislative bodies. It demonstrates the need for social regulation in addition to free markets and judicial decisions in common law cases.

Drawing on examples from current economic literature and politics, this is the first book on game theory at an introductory, but not elementary, level. The author covers topics of great actual or potential use in economics, such as noncooperative games, infinitely repeated games, finitely repeated games, two-person cooperative games, and cooperative games with and without side payments. Thoroughly revised, the new second edition of this authoritative book includes greatly expanded coverage of equilibrium refinements, and the "folk theorem" for repeated games as well as a new chapter on finite noncooperative games.

This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.

This work explains that equilibrium is the long-run outcome of a process in which non-fully rational players search for optimality over time. The models they e×plore provide a foundation for equilibrium theory and suggest ways for economists to evaluate and modify traditional equilibrium concepts.