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A Course in Game Theory

TL;DR: A Course in Game Theory as discussed by the authors presents the main ideas of game theory at a level suitable for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, emphasizing the theory's foundations and interpretations of its basic concepts.
Abstract: A Course in Game Theory presents the main ideas of game theory at a level suitable for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, emphasizing the theory's foundations and interpretations of its basic concepts. The authors provide precise definitions and full proofs of results, sacrificing generalities and limiting the scope of the material in order to do so. The text is organized in four parts: strategic games, extensive games with perfect information, extensive games with imperfect information, and coalitional games. It includes over 100 exercises.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a wide list of topics ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading are reviewed and connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted.
Abstract: Statistical physics has proven to be a fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. Recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social structures. A wide list of topics are reviewed ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading. The connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted. Comparison of model results with empirical data from social systems are also emphasized.

3,840 citations

Book
31 Jul 2000
TL;DR: This is the first comprehensive introduction to multiagent systems and contemporary distributed artificial intelligence and will be a useful reference not only for computer scientists and engineers, but for social scientists and management and organization scientists as well.
Abstract: From the Publisher: This is the first comprehensive introduction to multiagent systems and contemporary distributed artificial intelligence. The book provides detailed coverage of basic topics as well as several closely related ones and is suitable as a textbook. The book can be used for teaching as well as self-study, and it is designed to meet the needs of both researchers and practitioners. In view of the interdisciplinary nature of the field, it will be a useful reference not only for computer scientists and engineers, but for social scientists and management and organization scientists as well.

3,090 citations

Book
26 Dec 2001
TL;DR: Laffont and Martimort as mentioned in this paper focus on the principal-agent model, the "simple" situation where a principal, or company, delegates a task to a single agent through a contract, the essence of management and contract theory.
Abstract: Economics has much to do with incentives--not least, incentives to work hard, to produce quality products, to study, to invest, and to save. Although Adam Smith amply confirmed this more than two hundred years ago in his analysis of sharecropping contracts, only in recent decades has a theory begun to emerge to place the topic at the heart of economic thinking. In this book, Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort present the most thorough yet accessible introduction to incentives theory to date. Central to this theory is a simple question as pivotal to modern-day management as it is to economics research: What makes people act in a particular way in an economic or business situation? In seeking an answer, the authors provide the methodological tools to design institutions that can ensure good incentives for economic agents. This book focuses on the principal-agent model, the "simple" situation where a principal, or company, delegates a task to a single agent through a contract--the essence of management and contract theory. How does the owner or manager of a firm align the objectives of its various members to maximize profits? Following a brief historical overview showing how the problem of incentives has come to the fore in the past two centuries, the authors devote the bulk of their work to exploring principal-agent models and various extensions thereof in light of three types of information problems: adverse selection, moral hazard, and non-verifiability. Offering an unprecedented look at a subject vital to industrial organization, labor economics, and behavioral economics, this book is set to become the definitive resource for students, researchers, and others who might find themselves pondering what contracts, and the incentives they embody, are really all about.

2,454 citations

Book
15 Dec 2008
TL;DR: This exciting and pioneering new overview of multiagent systems, which are online systems composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents, i.e., online trading, offers a newly seen computer science perspective on multi agent systems, while integrating ideas from operations research, game theory, economics, logic, and even philosophy and linguistics.
Abstract: This exciting and pioneering new overview of multiagent systems, which are online systems composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents, i.e., online trading, offers a newly seen computer science perspective on multiagent systems, while integrating ideas from operations research, game theory, economics, logic, and even philosophy and linguistics. The authors emphasize foundations to create a broad and rigorous treatment of their subject, with thorough presentations of distributed problem solving, game theory, multiagent communication and learning, social choice, mechanism design, auctions, cooperative game theory, and modal logics of knowledge and belief. For each topic, basic concepts are introduced, examples are given, proofs of key results are offered, and algorithmic considerations are examined. An appendix covers background material in probability theory, classical logic, Markov decision processes and mathematical programming. Written by two of the leading researchers of this engaging field, this book will surely serve as THE reference for researchers in the fastest-growing area of computer science, and be used as a text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.

2,068 citations

Book
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: This second edition has been completely revised, capturing the tremendous developments in multiagent systems since the first edition appeared in 1999.
Abstract: Multiagent systems are made up of multiple interacting intelligent agents -- computational entities to some degree autonomous and able to cooperate, compete, communicate, act flexibly, and exercise control over their behavior within the frame of their objectives They are the enabling technology for a wide range of advanced applications relying on distributed and parallel processing of data, information, and knowledge relevant in domains ranging from industrial manufacturing to e-commerce to health care This book offers a state-of-the-art introduction to multiagent systems, covering the field in both breadth and depth, and treating both theory and practice It is suitable for classroom use or independent study This second edition has been completely revised, capturing the tremendous developments in multiagent systems since the first edition appeared in 1999 Sixteen of the book's seventeen chapters were written for this edition; all chapters are by leaders in the field, with each author contributing to the broad base of knowledge and experience on which the book rests The book covers basic concepts of computational agency from the perspective of both individual agents and agent organizations; communication among agents; coordination among agents; distributed cognition; development and engineering of multiagent systems; and background knowledge in logics and game theory Each chapter includes references, many illustrations and examples, and exercises of varying degrees of difficulty The chapters and the overall book are designed to be self-contained and understandable without additional material Supplemental resources are available on the book's Web site Contributors:Rafael Bordini, Felix Brandt, Amit Chopra, Vincent Conitzer, Virginia Dignum, Jurgen Dix, Ed Durfee, Edith Elkind, Ulle Endriss, Alessandro Farinelli, Shaheen Fatima, Michael Fisher, Nicholas R Jennings, Kevin Leyton-Brown, Evangelos Markakis, Lin Padgham, Julian Padget, Iyad Rahwan, Talal Rahwan, Alex Rogers, Jordi Sabater-Mir, Yoav Shoham, Munindar P Singh, Kagan Tumer, Karl Tuyls, Wiebe van der Hoek, Laurent Vercouter, Meritxell Vinyals, Michael Winikoff, Michael Wooldridge, Shlomo Zilberstein

1,692 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1944
TL;DR: Theory of games and economic behavior as mentioned in this paper is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based, and it has 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.
Abstract: This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, 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.

19,337 citations

Book ChapterDOI
18 Mar 1952
TL;DR: In this paper, an examination of elementary properties of a value for the essential case is presented, which is deduced from a set of three axioms, having simple intuitive interpretations.
Abstract: An examination of a number of elementary properties of a value for the essential case. This value is deduced from a set of three axioms, having simple intuitive interpretations.

7,208 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a study which examined perfect equilibrium in a bargaining model was presented, focusing on a strategic approach adopted for the study and details of the bargaining situation used; discussion on perfect equilibrium.
Abstract: Focuses on a study which examined perfect equilibrium in a bargaining model. Overview of the strategic approach adopted for the study; Details of the bargaining situation used; Discussion on perfect equilibrium. (From Ebsco)

5,139 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the violations of the rational theory of choice to the rules that govern the framing of decision and to the psychological principles of evaluation embodied in prospect theory, and argue that these rules are normatively essential but descriptively invalid.
Abstract: Alternative descriptions of a decision problem often give rise to different preferences, contrary to the principle of invariance that underlines the rational theory of choice. Violations of this theory are traced to the rules that govern the framing of decision and to the psychological principles of evaluation embodied in prospect theory. Invariance and dominance are obeyed when their application is transparent and often violated in other situations. Because these rules are normatively essential but descriptively invalid, no theory of choice can be both normatively adequate and descriptively accurate.

4,243 citations