Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction

ISBN-13: 9780199218462 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 200 str.

University College L Emeritus Professor of Economics Ken (

Opis

Games are everywhere: Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. The supermarket's price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. This Very Short Introduction offers a succinct tour of the fascinating world of game theory, a ground-breaking field that analyzes how to play games in a rational way. Ken Binmore, a renowned game theorist, explains the theory in a way that is both entertaining and non-mathematical yet also deeply insightful, revealing how game theory can shed light on everything from social gatherings, to ethical decision-making, to successful card-playing strategies, to calculating the sex ratio among bees. With mini-biographies of many fascinating, and occasionally eccentric, founders of the subject--including John Nash, subject of the movie A Beautiful Mind--this book offers a concise overview of a cutting-edge field that has seen spectacular successes in evolutionary biology and economics, and is beginning to revolutionize other disciplines from psychology to political science.

About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

O autorze

Ken Binmore is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College, London. He has held Chairs in Economics at LSE, the University of Michigan and UCL, and is a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol and a Fellow of the Centre for Philosophy at LSE. He began his academic career as a pure mathematician before becoming interested in game theory. Since that time, he has devoted himself to the subject, in particular designing major telecom auctions in many countries across the world. As a consequence of the $L23.4 billion pounds raised by the telecom auction he organized in the UK, he was described by Newsweek magazine as the "ruthless, poker-playing economist who destroyed the telecom industry ". But he nowadays devotes his time to applying game theory to the problem of the evolution of morality. The most recent of his numerous books is Playing for Real (Oxford, 2007).