It is impossible to understand modern economics without knowledge of the basic tools of game theory and mechanism design. This book provides a graduate-level introduction to the economic modeling of strategic behavior. The goal is to teach Economics doctoral students the tools of game theory and mechanism design that all economists should know.
Sample Chapter(s)
Preface
Chapter 1: Normal and Extensive Form Games
Contents:
- Normal and Extensive Form Games
- A First Look at Equilibrium
- Games with Nature
- Nash Equilibrium: Existence and Foundations
- Nash Equilibrium Refinements in Dynamic Games
- Signaling
- Repeated Games
- Topics in Dynamic Games
- Bargaining
- Introduction to Mechanism Design
- Dominant Strategy Mechanism Design
- Bayesian Mechanism Design
- Principal Agency
- Appendices
Readership: Graduate and doctoral students interested in microeconomics, game theory, and mechanism design.
"Mailath's Lecture Notes provide graduate students with a solid background to understand how strategic interaction is conceptualised and applied in current research in economics and social sciences. After an initial rigorous presentation of equilibrium concepts, their existence and their nature, the unique feature of the book consists in showing how to use repeated and dynamic games to formalise problems of reputation building, bargaining and mechanism design. This approach will be welcome by all those interested in institutional design."
Dr Giancarlo Ianulardo
Lecturer in Economics
University of Exeter Business School
George J Mailath is Walter H Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Goldsmith Professor in the Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
Professor Mailath's published research in microeconomics includes papers on pricing, noncooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory, repeated games, social norms, and the theory of reputations. Oxford University Press published the co-authored (with Professor Larry Samuelson) graduate text Repeated Games and Reputations: Long-Run Relationships in August 2006. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Econometric Society, the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and the Game Theory Society. Professor Mailath edited Theoretical Economics 2013–2017 and was the theory co-editor of the Econometric Society Monograph Series, 2008–2013. He has been an associate editor or editorial board member of Econometrica, The Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Economic Theory, Games and Economic Behavior, The International Economic Review, and Economic Theory.
