Toward a History of Game Theory

Toward a History of Game Theory PDF

Author: E. Roy Weintraub

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780822312536

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During the 1940s "game theory" emerged from the fields of mathematics and economics to provide a revolutionary new method of analysis. Today game theory provides a language for discussing conflict and cooperation not only for economists, but also for business analysts, sociologists, war planners, international relations theorists, and evolutionary biologists. Toward a History of Game Theory offers the first history of the development, reception, and dissemination of this crucial theory. Drawing on interviews with original members of the game theory community and on the Morgenstern diaries, the first section of the book examines early work in game theory. It focuses on the groundbreaking role of the von Neumann-Morgenstern collaborative work, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944). The second section recounts the reception of this new theory, revealing just how game theory made its way into the literatures of the time and thus became known among relevant communities of scholars. The contributors explore how game theory became a wedge in opening up the social sciences to mathematical tools and use the personal recollections of scholars who taught at Michigan and Princeton in the late 1940s to show why the theory captivated those practitioners now considered to be "giants" in the field. The final section traces the flow of the ideas of game theory into political science, operations research, and experimental economics. Contributors. Mary Ann Dimand, Robert W. Dimand, Robert J. Leonard, Philip Mirowski, Angela M. O'Rand, Howard Raiffa, Urs Rellstab, Robin E. Rider, William H. Riker, Andrew Schotter, Martin Shubik, Vernon L. Smith

The World the Game Theorists Made

The World the Game Theorists Made PDF

Author: Paul Erickson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-11-04

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 022609717X

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Today, game theory is central to our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and much more. Both the social and biological sciences have seemingly fused around the game. Yet the ascendancy of game theory and theories of rational choice more generally remains a rich source of misunderstanding. To gain a better grasp of the widespread dispersion of game theory and the mathematics of rational choice, Paul Erickson uncovers its history during the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern s seminal "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" in 1944 and the theory s revival in economics in the 1980s. "The World the Game Theorists Made "reveals how the mathematics of rational choice was a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging debate on some of the great issues of the time. Because it so actively persists in the sciences and public life, assessing the significance of game theory for the postwar sciences is especially critical now."

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior PDF

Author: John Von Neumann

Publisher: Diana

Published: 2020-01-29

Total Pages: 660

ISBN-13: 9785608789779

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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.

Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas

Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas PDF

Author: Pierre Garrouste

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781781950227

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Since the 1980s there has been a renewed interest in attempts to introduce a sense of history into economic literature. In this text, the authors argue that it is not possible to explain a state of the world without first analyzing the processes that lead to that state.

Game Theory and Economic Analysis

Game Theory and Economic Analysis PDF

Author: Christian Schmidt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-06-20

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1134511183

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This book presents the huge variety of current contributions of game theory to economics. The reader is taken through a concise history of game theory and exposed to original pieces of work that are significant to game theory as a whole.

The History Of Game Theory, Volume 1

The History Of Game Theory, Volume 1 PDF

Author: Mary-Ann Dimand

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1996-08-08

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 113490780X

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This first volume (of three) examines the methodological origins of game theory up to the Second World War. It adds to the understanding of game theory's contentious roots and offers insights into modern applications of the theory.

On Coordination in Non-Cooperative Game Theory

On Coordination in Non-Cooperative Game Theory PDF

Author: Lauren Larrouy

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-08-17

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 3031361717

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By offering a critical assessment of the evolution of standard game theory, this book argues for a shift in the ontology and methodology of game theory for appraising games, one based on understanding the players’ strategic reasoning process. Analyzing the history of economic thought, the book highlights the methodological issues faced by standard game theory in its treatment of strategic reasoning and the consequence it has on the status of players’ beliefs. It also highlights how the two original contributions of T. C. Schelling and M. Bacharach can be applied to these issues. Furthermore, the book assesses the intersubjective dimension in games by applying the cognitive sciences and by integrating simulation theory into game theory. Consequently, this book offers an interdisciplinary approach for reassessing the nature of the intersubjectivity involved in strategic reasoning. It shows that the analysis of games should involve the study and identification of the reasoning process that leads the players to a specific outcome, i.e., to a specific solution. A game should not be understood (as is done in standard game theory) as a mathematical representation of an individual choice at equilibrium. This requires investigating the players’ capacity for coordination. Understanding the process of coordination allows us to understand strategic reasoning and ultimately to provide new answers to the indeterminacy problem, one of the central hurdles in game theory, and one that underscores its normative difficulties.

The World the Game Theorists Made

The World the Game Theorists Made PDF

Author: Paul Erickson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-11-04

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 022609720X

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In recent decades game theory—the mathematics of rational decision-making by interacting individuals—has assumed a central place in our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and even the ethics of altruism and fairness in human beings. With game theory’s ubiquity, however, has come a great deal of misunderstanding. Critics of the contemporary social sciences view it as part of an unwelcome trend toward the marginalization of historicist and interpretive styles of inquiry, and many accuse its proponents of presenting a thin and empirically dubious view of human choice. The World the Game Theorists Made seeks to explain the ascendency of game theory, focusing on the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern’s seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 and the theory’s revival in economics in the 1980s. Drawing on a diverse collection of institutional archives, personal correspondence and papers, and interviews, Paul Erickson shows how game theory offered social scientists, biologists, military strategists, and others a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging thought and debate on some of the most critical issues of the day.

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind PDF

Author: Paul Erickson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-11-22

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 022604677X

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In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciences—psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others—and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the people—Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many others—and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a “Cold War rationality.” Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationality—optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanical—in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy. The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship.