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Game Theory
A Category Archive (38 entries)
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May 24, 2012
Regulation and Subsidies
Arnold Kling
Kyle writes, Kling's line is very simple: 1. Ideal regulatory systems can be modeled as games. 2. Regulators *try* to solve problem by creating regulations. 3. The regulated participants *try* to circumvent regulations by following the letter of the law,... MORE
April 24, 2012
Economic Philosophy
Bryan Caplan
My new baby has delayed my intended post on the Matt Zwolinski-Will Wilkinson debate, but late is better than never. Matt kicked it off:[W]hile government is, in principle, able to do some good, there are very often (almost always?) superior... MORE
March 5, 2012
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
It's Liars and Outliers, and I would rate it the best economics book of the year thus far. He writes about his book here and here. Schneier views our lives from the perspective of game theory. Every day, we must... MORE
January 16, 2012
C. Fred Bergsten and Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (BK) write, There are only two alternatives. Europe can jettison the monetary union. Or it can adopt a complementary economic union. This brief argues that, for all the turmoil, Europe is well on... MORE
November 12, 2011
Politics and Economics
David Henderson
In which the author predicts an attack in or near Las Vegas. A few weeks ago I made a few optimistic predictions and a few pessimistic ones. My optimistic ones tend to be about how even semi-free markets will solve... MORE
October 27, 2011
Economics of Education
Bryan Caplan
In a Nash equilibrium, every actor maximizes his utility given the behavior of all the other actors. Arum and Roksa's Academically Adrift contains one of the best (implicit) applications of the concept I've ever read. They name all the key... MORE
August 8, 2011
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Bryan Caplan
At this year's GenCon, I discovered a thought-provoking game: "Are You a Werewolf?" - a.k.a. "Mafia." The game's a brilliant exploration of cheating, cheater detection, and democratic information aggregation. The basic set-up:1. There are 15 players and a moderator. 2.... MORE
April 25, 2011
Tyler Cowen argues with Bryan on pacifism. There is also a Lucas critique issue of how the bad guys start behaving once they figure out that the good guys are pacifist, and I don't see him discussing that either. I... MORE
February 18, 2011
This is an off-topic response to comments on my earlier off-topic post on the board game Othellotm. I believe that it could be solved using today's computers, by truncating the decision tree whenever a player is in a clear losing... MORE
June 8, 2010
David Friedman's dinnertime conversations with his son Bill inspired the following hypothetical:Imagine that someone in our future is equipped with a device capable of delivering packages to the past. He makes a list of thirty or forty of the most... MORE
March 7, 2010
Game Theory
David Henderson
Jacob Hornberger had an insightful blog post on Friday in which he applied basic game theory to the issue of sanctions. He didn't use the term "game theory," but he did the key thing that game theorists do: in thinking... MORE
December 2, 2009
A reader writes, If the price-insensitive people are at home avoiding the crowds then it would seem the online stores would be getting shopped by a higher than average percentage of price-insensitive people. It appears to me the 'price discrimination'... MORE
October 5, 2009
Game Theory
David Henderson
Once we start using the word "privilege" where what we really mean is "wealth," we start applying this term to those who came by their wealth without special privilege-the Bill Gateses of the world, sure, but also the more-common successful... MORE
June 4, 2009
The Lookout is not just one of the best modern crime flicks you've never heard of. It's also the most compelling dramatic depiction of backwards induction I can remember. The lead character has trouble sequencing his actions (wake up, shower,... MORE
May 14, 2009
Here's a question from my final exam for Ph.D. Micro. Care to give it a try in the comments? Suppose that greeting other people is a special kind of Coordination game. We are in the equilibrium where everyone shakes hands;... MORE
February 18, 2009
Game Theory
David Henderson
Nobel prize winner John Nash is visiting my school, the Naval Postgraduate School, this week and is giving a speech tomorrow to the student body. Some of my economist colleagues and I had lunch with him today. He seems to... MORE
October 10, 2008
Do you like prediction markets as much as Bryan and Robin? Then try Pop!Tech prediction market.... MORE
July 9, 2008
First, there's South Bend Seven. I'm still waiting for the plan that requires volunteering* from able bodied retirees as a condition of receiving their social security checks, or requires a few hours a week of service from anyone getting unemployment... MORE
October 15, 2007
From this year's citation While direct mechanisms are not intended as descriptions of real-world institutions, their mathematical structure makes them amenable to analysis. Finding the best of all direct mechanisms for a given problem is often straightforward, and once the... MORE
August 14, 2007
Tomorrow I'm flying to the world's greatest experimental game theory conference: GenCon. 25,000 people will play games of every description. If you believe in the project of experimental game theory, it's a data feast. I'd probably get audited by the... MORE
July 26, 2007
MSNBC reports The results are in from the great "Man vs. Machine" computer poker showdown in Vancouver, with the humans coming out on top by a narrow margin. ...The Polaris team as well as Laak and Eslami are all looking... MORE
January 26, 2007
Soon after the first Iraq torture scandal, I remember a pompous politician declaring (more or less) that "The reason why we don't torture prisoners is so American soldiers don't get tortured." Whatever you think about torture, this argument seems underwhelming.... MORE
August 3, 2006
One week from today, I'll be at the world's most important conference on advanced game theory and experimental economics: GenCon. My dream is to make it the Schelling point around which creative social scientists gather. Who's with me?... MORE
April 4, 2006
Suppose your long-term enemy has compromised himself somehow. You're in a position to demand satisfaction, but his position is too strong to actually get rid of him. What could you do instead? In practice, a common solution is to insist... MORE
March 29, 2006
Suppose you have a secret that the world will hold against you, but it's sure to leak out one day regardless of what you do. What's the best way to come out of the closet? I started thinking about this... MORE
December 14, 2005
Here's an idea for an entrepeneur.... MORE
August 31, 2005
The latest great fictional depiction of backwards induction is the Korean thriller Oldboy. Not for the faint of heart, but when the villain says (roughly) "You shouldn't have been wondering why I locked you up. You should have been wondering... MORE
August 12, 2005
Most historians tell stories in which the decisions of a few Great Men drastically change the fates of millions. Prinzip started World War I by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Stalin collectivized agriculture, and Hitler ordered the Holocaust. Tolstoy wrote his... MORE
June 8, 2005
[Warning: Sith spoilers!] Whenever I meet a promising new graduate student, it isn't long before I mention the practical importance of backwards induction. (For a short definition, see here; for a longer treatment, check this out). "What's your career goal?"... MORE
March 21, 2005
International Trade
Arnold Kling
Gary Becker makes the case against the drug war. After totaling all spending, a study by Kevin Murphy, Steve Cicala, and myself estimates that the war on drugs is costing the US one way or another well over $100 billion... MORE
February 12, 2005
The excellent Saw comes out on DVD this Tuesday. If you've got a cast-iron stomach, there is no better fictional exploration of the Prisoners' Dilemma available. (If you don't have a cast-iron stomach, may I suggest Pooh's Heffalump Movie?) The... MORE
February 8, 2005
News of an Israeli-Palestinian cease fire reminds me of Tyler's Cowen's excellent game theoretic exploration of their long struggle. This essay is worth a thousand news stories on the subject, but I still think that Tyler misses the simplest explanation... MORE
March 9, 2004
Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
David Weinberger has some thoughts about eBay. I've lost bids to auction snipers. As a customer, I feel cheated, even though, of course, I could take a sniper's eye-view of the transaction. Even if letting robots game the auction doesn't... MORE
September 5, 2003
Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Clay Shirky writes that the Internet helps to break the link between fame and economic success for writers. For an author to be famous, many people had to have read, and therefore paid for, his or her books. Fortune was... MORE
August 23, 2003
Energy, Environment, Resources
Arnold Kling
How should the location of undesirable land uses, such as toxic waste dumps or prisons, be determined. Citing Julian Simon, Herbert Inhaber suggests using a reverse auction, in which the Federal government offers to compensate local residents for living near... MORE
February 27, 2003
This week, I give the award to this comment by Zimran. Talking about the issue of airline profitability, he writes in part the airline industry also has perennial over capacity. Companies may enter and exit the market, but the planes... MORE
February 25, 2003
'Jane Galt' gives an explanation for airline bankruptcies . In single-union negotiations, money left on the table now can be partially reclaimed by demanding higher wages in the next round of negotiations. Not so with multi-lateral arrangements. Any money left... MORE
February 14, 2003
Economists sometimes seem to be incurable anti-romantics. Consider James Miller's treatment of Valentine's Day as a signalling game. Even a woman who hates flowers would be rational in getting mad at her boyfriend for not buying her flowers on Valentine's... MORE
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