Department of Economics
180.215 Game Theory and the Social Sciences
Fall 2006
- Prof.
Joseph Harrington
- Department of Economics
- (410) 516-7615, Fax: (410) 516-7600, joe.harrington@jhu.edu
- Office Hours: Thursday, Friday, 10:15-Noon; Office: Mergenthaler 433
- Office Hours: Tuesday, 3-5
- Class Location: TBA; Class Times: Th,F 9:00-10:00
About the Course
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The objective of this course is to introduce you to game-theoretic reasoning and to show its usefulness in understanding social phenomena. While many mathematical tools have been developed for investigating physical phenomena, game theory is unique in that it was developed for investigating social phenomena (though it has since been appropriated by evolutionary biologists). It is then not by accident that game theory is well-suited for analyzing the kinds of problems studied by social scientists. As stated by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in their seminal book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944):
The importance of the social phenomena, the wealth and multiplicity of their manifestations, and the complexity of their structure, are at least equal to those in physics. It is therefore to be expected - or feared - that mathematical discoveries of a stature comparable to that of calculus will be needed in order to produce decisive success in this field. (Incidentally, it is in this spirit that our present efforts must be discounted.) A fortiori it is unlikely that a mere repetition of the tricks which served us so well in physics will do for the social phenomena too. The probability is very slim indeed, since it will be shown that we encounter in our discussions some mathematical problems which are quite different from those which occur in physical science.
Though the contribution of game theory to the social sciences is several orders of magnitude smaller than the contribution of calculus to the physical sciences, it is still true that game theory represents an important and essential step in the development of appropriate mathematical tools for analyzing social phenomena.
Syllabus
Course Dates
- Mid-Term Examination: October 26
- Project is due December 1 at 9:05am
- Last class is December 8
- Final Examination: December 22, 9-Noon
Problem Sets
Required Books
Dutta, Prajit, Strategies and Games: Theory and Practice, MIT Press, 2001. Check the price at Amazon and at bn.com.
Dixit, Avinash and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically, W. W. Norton, 1991. Check the price at Amazon and at bn.com.
You can buy these books at CampusBooks4Less which searches online textbook sites for the lowest price.
Game Theory Hall of Fame
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| Robert Aumann |
John Harsanyi |
Sherlock Holmes |
John Nash |
John von Neumann |
Reinhard Selten |
Lloyd Shapley |
Links
Be sure to try out Mike Shor's Game Theory.net which offers a vast array of resources including online tests, games, glossary, and examples of game theory in popular culture.
Play the Prisoners' Dilemma
Ariel Rubinstein's Didactic Web-Based Experiments in Game Theory
Paul Walker's History of Game Theory
A Beautiful Mind - The story of the troubled life of John Nash - the greatest game theorist of our time. The book by Sylvia Nasar is superb. To read an account by John Milnor - one of John Nash's fellow graduate students at Princeton - click here.
