Idea Transcript
Online Materials for Game Theory Glossaries of Economic Terms 1. Game theory dictionary Mike Shor, Vanderbilt University About 150 entries are given quite full, cross-referenced definitions, each of which is linked to further learning material. This glossary of game theory terms ranges from Absolute Auction to Zero Sum. 2. Sonderforschungsbereich 504 glossary SFB 504 Sonderforschungsbereich 504 is an interdisciplinary research group combining economists with social psychologists. This glossary provides well-written short articles in English on the basic concepts of economics and econometrics, as well as the psychology of decision making and social judgement. Covers most of the 'heuristics and biases' causing deviations from rational choice, e.g. availability, representativeness, risk aversion, anchoring-and-adjustment. Also covers behavioural finance, game theory, experimental economics, auction theory; and applications to life-cycle savings decisions. Essays are cross-referenced to entries in the site's bibliography.
Text and Notes 1. Course materials: Game theory Bernhard von Stengel, LSE From a game theory course taught at the LSE Maths department, this page collects exercises and solution sets (in different HTML files) and old exam papers in PDF. It also includes a comprehensive set of notes on game theory, available as a PDF download of over 150 pages. There are links to audio and video of lectures, but these are only available to members of the LSE. 2. Stochastic agent-based models in economics and finance Prof. Thomas Lux, University of Kiel This set of talks was given on 8 January 2009 as part of the PhD seminar series organised by the School of Economics and Finance of the University of St Andrews. Prof. Thomas Lux speaks on how economic systems can be seen as evolutionary models, where agents interact with each other and a selection process favours the most successful. He introduces underlying dynamical systems as well as the necessary game theoretic concepts. Video can be downloaded in WMV format and presentation slides / handouts are also available. 3. Lessons from the prisoner's dilemma Martin Poulter, Economics Network This is an introduction to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. It allows the reader to play against three strategies, and discusses what is learnt about co-operation and forgiveness by egotists. It ends with discussion questions and further reading suggestions. 4. Game theory Theodore L Turocy, Texas A&M University, Bernhard von Stengel, London School of Economics This 39-page PDF document is a draft of an encyclopedia entry and has been released as a research report by LSE's Centre for Discrete and Applicable Mathematics. It has ten sections and includes a glossary. The final version was published in volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Information Systems in 2002. 1
5. Prize lectures from economics Nobel Laureates Nobel Foundation The Nobel Foundation makes available a great deal of material on each of the Economics prize winners, including video of each Prize Lecture since Robert Mundell in 1999. As well as a lay introduction to each prize winner's research, there are "Advanced information" links giving a more technical explanation. This link is to the Economics Network's quick index of lecture videos and related materials on the site. Each video is a full lecture (usually between 40 and 60 minutes) with good audio and video quality, and pitched at a non-technical audience. Transcripts of each lecture are available. 6. Games and information : downloadable chapters Eric Rasmusen, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University This is the companion site for Rasmusen's game theory text, with downloadable chapters in PDF format. Available from the same site are the diagrams from the book in .jpg format. 7. Al Roth's game theory, experimental economics and market design page Al Roth, Harvard University Al Roth's game theory, experimental economics and market design page includes introductory articles called: Game-Theoretic Models of Bargaining, Two-Sided Matching Models, Experimental Economics, Is Economics a Science?, and Matching and Allocation in Medicine and Health Care. 8. Game Theory : an introductory sketch Roger A McCain, Drexel University Game Theory : an introductory sketch by Roger A. McCain presents nearly twenty sections of an introductory game theory textbook. The site uses frames so that the index page and a content page are always presented together. The examples of game theory applications include queuing, college applications and marriage vows. 9. A chronology of game theory Paul Walker, University of Canterbury This document lists historical milestones in the development of game theory up to the awarding of the Nobel Prizes to Nash, Harsanyi and Selten (1994) and Aumann and Schelling (2005). Entries are short paragraphs within a timeline. It includes bibliographical notes for reference. 10. History of economic thought website Impressive, very large site on history of economic thought, including a long alphabetical list of historical economists with profiles and further links to original documents on the same server. You can also browse by school of thought - Pre-Classical, Anglo-American, Heterodox Themes, Classical, Continental, and Keynesian. You can examine the same material by theme: there are impressive documents in the categories of Business Cycle Theory, Empirics and Econometrics, Imperfect Competition, Economic Development, Uncertainty and Information, Game Theory and Finance Theory and includes weblinks and references. It is hosted at the graduate faculty of economics of the New School University New York 11. Laboratory and field experiments : what can we learn from them? Prof. Steven D Levitt, University of Chicago, Prof. John A List, University of Chicago Laboratory and Field Experiments: What can we learn from them? is a summary of a paper by two leading experimental economists setting out principles and procedure for experimentation. Highlights and suggests solutions for problems of self-selection bias among volunteers and other biases in test design; highlights ways that field experiments can complement or improve on laboratory experiments.
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12. Game Theory with Professor Ben Polak Ben Polak This online resource consists of a course on Game Theory taught at Yale College, USA. Ben Polak is professor of Economics and Management in the Department of Economics and the School of Management at Yale University. The course looks at dominance, backward induction, adverse selection and more. Each class has a transcript, podcast and video clip. Flash is recommended for watching the videos. 13. Game Theory with Professor Ben Polak Ben Polak, Yale Part of the Open Yale service, this course is an introduction to game theory and strategic thinking. Ideas such as dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stability, commitment, credibility, asymmetric information, adverse selection, and signalling are discussed and applied to games played in class and to examples drawn from economics, politics, the movies, and elsewhere. It is taught by Ben Polak and features videos, audio, course syllabus and lecture notes. 14. Learning, knowledge and adaptation Ray Dacey, University of Idaho These are the detailed notes from a summer school course on the relations between decision theory and knowledge. This text looks into the foundations of decision theory and their relevance to inference and to the theory of information. The files, totalling 49 pages, are available as a zipped set of Word documents or a zipped set of PDFs. 15. Summary of Chapter G Topic: Game Theory Stefan Waner, Hofstra University, Steven R Costenoble, Hofstra University This is a single-page summary of the Game Theory chapter of the authors' "Finite Mathematics" textbook. It includes a simple interactive game in Javascript. Links at the top of the page take you to an interactive quiz on the topic and a game solver. It has been produced by Stefan Waner and Steven R. Costenoble of Hofstra University. 16. Jim Ratliff's graduate-level course in game theory Jim Ratliff, University of Arizona These are the extensive materials used in a course "taught to students in their second year of the economics PhD program at the University of Arizona during the 1992-1997 period." More than 260 pages of material are archived, in six course sections; "Strategic Form Games", "Nonequilibrium Solution Concepts", "Nash Equilibrium", "Extensive-form Games," "Repeated Games" and "Bayesian Games". 17. Probability and decision Paul Bartha, University of British Columbia At the foot of this page are extensive notes from 15 lectures by a philosopher on game theory and rational choice. Topics include the Allais and Ellsburg paradoxes, criteria of rationality and evolutionary considerations. 18. Games, fixed points and mathematical economics Christian-Olivier Ewald, University of St. Andrews This 134-page PDF booklet was compiled from lecture notes for a course in Game Theory at the University of Kaiserslautern. The course was delivered in Winter 2003/04 and the manuscript was released in March 2007. After an introductory chapter discussing two-person games, the chapters are "Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem and Nash's Equilibrium Theorem", "More general Equilibrium Theorems", "Cooperative Games", and "Differential Games". 3
19. Modeling bounded rationality Ariel Rubinstein, Tel Aviv University Modeling bounded rationality is a textbook on advanced game theoretic models of bounded rationality, written by Ariel Rubinstein in 1998. It "provides potential material for a one-term graduate course. The choice of material is highly subjective. Bibliographic notes appear at the end of each chapter. The projects that follow those notes contain speculative material and ideas that the reader should consider with caution." The book is available as a single PDF file of 220 pages to download. 20. Economic applications of game theory Muhamet Yildiz, MIT Detailed notes and slides from a course of 18 lectures are archived here by MIT's Open CourseWare project. The course was given in 2000, 2001 and 2002. The course covers, "Analysis of strategic behavior in multi-person economic settings. Introduction to Nash equilibrium and its refinements: subgame-perfect equilibrium and sequential equilibrium. Applications drawn from labor economics, the economics of organization, industrial organization, international trade, and macroeconomics." 21. Economic applications of Game Theory : materials Prof. Muhamet Yildiz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Detailed lecture notes, slides, problem sets and exam questions from Muhamet Yildiz's 'Economic applications of game theory' course in 2004. The syllabus, lecture notes, slides, exams and problem sets are available to download as PDF files. It includes supplementary notes on rationaliazability, partnership games and forward induction.
Audio and Video Lectures 1. Stochastic agent-based models in economics and finance Prof. Thomas Lux, University of Kiel This set of talks was given on 8 January 2009 as part of the PhD seminar series organised by the School of Economics and Finance of the University of St Andrews. Prof. Thomas Lux speaks on how economic systems can be seen as evolutionary models, where agents interact with each other and a selection process favours the most successful. He introduces underlying dynamical systems as well as the necessary game theoretic concepts. Video can be downloaded in WMV format and presentation slides / handouts are also available. 2. Another 5 numbers: game theory Simon Singh, BBC Radio 4 This is 15-minute audio programme first aired on the BBC on 31 October 2003 and covers game theory and its applications. It is presented by Simon Singh and is part of his Radio 4 series "Another 5 Numbers," which looks at the mathematical, social and scientific history and significance of five numbers. 3. Game Theory with Professor Ben Polak Ben Polak, Yale Part of the Open Yale service, this course is an introduction to game theory and strategic thinking. Ideas such as dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stability, commitment, credibility, asymmetric information, adverse selection, and signalling are discussed and applied to games played in class and to examples drawn from economics, politics, the movies, and elsewhere. It is taught by Ben Polak and features videos, audio, course syllabus and lecture notes.
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Assessment Materials 1. True/false quizzes for Finite Mathematics Topic: Game Theory Stefan Waner, Hofstra University, Steven R Costenoble, Hofstra University The test contains 20 true/false questions. The score is calculated as you go along. This site accompanies the authors' textbook, "Finite Mathematics," one chapter of which is on game theory. It has been produced by Stefan Waner and Steven R. Costenoble of Hofstra University. 2. Game theory self test: finding equilibria Mike Shor, Vanderbilt University This is a five-question self-test in which the user has to answer multiple-choice questions about equilibria in games that are set out in normal form. 3. Game theory self-test: finding rollback equilibria Mike Shor, Vanderbilt University This is a five-question self-test in which the user has to answer multiple-choice questions about equilibria in games that are set out in extensive form. 4. Game theory self-test: finding mixed strategy equilibria Mike Shor, Vanderbilt University Four multiple-choice questions about mixed strategy equilibria are presented in this interactive self-test. 5. Economic applications of Game Theory : materials Prof. Muhamet Yildiz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Detailed lecture notes, slides, problem sets and exam questions from Muhamet Yildiz's 'Economic applications of game theory' course in 2004. The syllabus, lecture notes, slides, exams and problem sets are available to download as PDF files. It includes supplementary notes on rationaliazability, partnership games and forward induction.
Simulations Game theory utility and stimulation Stefan Waner, Hofstra University, Steven R Costenoble, Hofstra University This is an online game creator/solver that runs in a web browser. Enter payoffs into a matrix and click the buttons to identify saddle points or dominated strategies. It has been produced by Stefan Waner and Steven R. Costenoble of Hofstra University.
Software Gambit Richard D McKelvey This is a library of game theory software with a graphical user interface. It contains a scripting language. Games can be both constructed and analysed in extensive or normal form. Gambit is designed to be portable across platforms: it currently is known to run on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, and Windows 98 and later. Support information, screenshots, documentation and related Internet links are available.
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