An Introduction to Game Theory

An Introduction to Game Theory

Economic
Economic Behavior

Game theoretic reasoning pervades economic theory and is used widely in other social and behavioral sciences. This book presents the main ideas of game theory and shows how they can be used to understand economic, social, political, and biological phenomena. It assumes no knowledge of economics, political science, or any other social or behavioral science. It emphasizes the ideas behind the theory rather than their mathematical expression, and assumes no specific mathematical knowledge beyond that typically taught in US and Canadian high schools. (Chapter 17 reviews the mathematical concepts used in the book.) In particular, calculus is not used, except in the appendix of Chapter 9 (Section 9.7). Nevertheless, all concepts are defined precisely, and logical reasoning is used extensively. The more comfortable you are with tight logical analysis, the easier you will find the arguments. In brief, my aim is to explain the main ideas of game theory as simply as
possible while maintaining complete precision.

Martin J. Osborne

Osborne@chass.utoronto.ca;www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne

Oxford University Press

2000

Novita

PDF

English

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