unit iv: thinking about thinking

Unit IV: Thinking about Thinking

•Choice and Consequence•Learning to Cooperate•Summary and Conclusions4/27

Summary and Conclusions

• Final Exam • The Evolution of Game Theory• Tournament Update

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ZEROSUM GAMES NONZEROSUM GAMES REPEATED GAMESMINIMAX THEOREM NASH EQUILIBRIUM FOLK THEOREM

PRISONER’S DILEMMA

WAR EXCHANGE COOPERATIONPARLOR GAMES NUCLEAR TRADE SUSTAINABLE

ARMS RACE DEVELOPENT

Theory of Games Strategy & Conflict The Evolution & Economic Behavior of Cooperation

Soviet A-Test The End of the Cold WarNobel: Harsanyi, Selten & Nash

The Evolution of Game Theory

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A fourth paradigm?

EVOLUTIONARY GAMES ??ESS

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“And here it becomes emphatically clear that the intellectual processes of choosing a strategy in pure conflict and choosing a strategy of coordination are of wholly different sorts …. In the pure-coordination game, the player’s objective is to make contact with the other player through some imaginative process of introspection, of searching for shared clues; in the minimax strategy of a zero-sum game … -- one’s whole objective is to avoid any meetings of the mind, even an inadvertent one” (Schelling, 1960, p. 96).



Once we move to nonzero-sum games, however, the status of game theory grows ambiguous:

• Coordination Games• Bargaining Games• Repeated Games• Public Goods Games

PLAY BEST RESPONSE STRATEGY? There may be more than one, and the “right” one will depend on what the other/s choose\s.

PLAY DOMINANT STRATEGY (when it exists)? PD!

Multiple and/or inefficient equilibria

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Summary & Conclusion[W]here trust and good faith do not exist and cannot be made to by our acting as though they did, we may wish to solicit advice from the underworld, or from ancient despotism, on how to make agreements when trust and good faith are lacking and there is no legal recourse for breach on contract. The ancient exchanged hostages, drank from the same glass to demonstrate the absence of poison, met in public places (…) and even deliberately exchanged spies to facilitate transmittal of authentic information. It seems likely that a well-developed theory of strategy could (…) discover modern equivalents that, though offensive to our taste, may be desperately needed in the regulation of conflict.

– Schelling,1960, p. 20

For Further Interest

Binmore, K. Game Theory & the Social Contract, II (1998).Gintis, H. Game Theory Evolving (2000). Kreps, D. Game Theory and Economic Modelling (1994).Raiffa, H. The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982).

unit iv: thinking about thinking

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