The papers collected in this volume relate to game theory. They aim at the elaboration and discussion of basic con- cepts, at the analysis of specific applied models and at the evaluation of experimental evidence. A game is a mathematical model of a situation where several actors with different goals are engaged in strategic inter- action. Game theory explores the nature and the consequence. s of rational behavior in games. With respect to several papers in this volume, it seems to be appropriate to comment on later developments. A list of some important references is given at the end of the...

Motivation. That elegant fiction the competitive equilibrium seems still to dominate the frontiers of theoretical microeconomics. We may think of it in a general way as a state of affairs wherein economic agents, responding "rationally" to annoWlced prices, make choices which are consistent and feasible. The prices may also be described as "taken": for one reason or another the agents who respond to them consider them as given. The existence of such a state, its optimality, its robustness against free bargaining among agents when there are many of them, its Wliqueness, its stability when...

An dieser Stelle mochte ich Herrn Professor Dr. Heinz Sauermann, der mich zu der Abfassung dieser Arbeit ermun- tert hat, fUr die mir erwiesene Forderung herzlich danken. Mein Dank gilt auch der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, die mich durch die Gewahrung eines Habilitationsstipendiums unterstiitzt hat. Ich bin Herrn Dr. Otwin Becker, Herrn Rein- hard Tietz und Herrn Michael Klose dafUr zu Dank verpflich- tet, daB sie das Manuskript vor seiner Veroffentlichung noch einmal durchgesehen haben. Ihnen und Herrn Professor Dr. Waldemar Wittmann verdanke ich einige wertvolle Hinweise. Nicht...