Game theory in the social sciences : a reader-friendly guide / / Luca Lambertini

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910789983003321
• Autore: Lambertini Luca
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: London : , : Routledge, , 2011
• ISBN: 1-136-73759-6; 1-283-10337-0; 9786613103376; 1-136-73760-X; 0-203-81864-4
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (209 p.)
• Disciplina: 300.1/5193; 300.15193
• Soggetti: Game theory; Social sciences - Methodology
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Game Theory in the Social Sciences: A reader-friendly guide; Copyright; Contents; List of figures; Preface; 1 The origins: a bit of history; 1.1 Giant steps; 1.2 Hidden truths?; 2 What is a game?; 2.1 The structure of a game; 2.2 A brief taxonomy of games; 2.3 Alternative representations; 3 Solving a game; 3.1 The maximin (or minimax) equilibrium; 3.2 Refinements of the Nash equilibrium; 3.3 Warnings; 3.4 Risk dominance; 3.5 Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies; 3.6 Appendix: Schrödinger's paradox; 4 Understanding economics; 4.1 Industrial economics; 4.2 Monetary and fiscal policies; 4.3 Natural resources and the environment5 Repeated games and collusivebehaviour; 5.1 The prisoners' dilemma revisited; 5.2 Time and time discounting; 5.3 Finite or infinite horizon?; 5.4 The folk theorems; 5.5 The chain store paradox; 6 Understanding politics; 6.1 Voting paradoxes; 6.2 A spatial model of political competition; 6.3 The robustness of the median voter theorem; 6.4 Electoral campaigns; 6.5 How about being re-elected?; 7 Wargames; 7.1 The battle of the Bismarck Sea; 7.2 Overlord; 7.3 Escalation as an all-pay auction; 7.4 ; Mutually assured destruction and the Cuban missile crisis; 7.5 The Euromissiles crisis7.6 Hawks, doves and Star Wars; 8 Trade, security and hegemony; 8.1 International cooperation and free trade; 8.2 Guns versus butter and the trade-off betweenopenness and security; 8.3 The persistence of unipolarism; 8.4 Appendix: the game between satellites; 9 The role of information; 9.1 Asymmetric information; 9.2 Incomplete information; 9.3 Forward induction; 9.4 Appendix: Bayes' rule; 10 Bargaining and cooperation; 10.1 Bargaining games: the axiomatic approach; 10.2 Cooperative games: a matter of coalitions; 10.3 Examples; Notes; Bibliography; Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Individuals, firms, governments and nations behave strategically, for good and bad. Over the last few decades, game theory has been constructed and progressively refined to become the major tool used by social scientists to understand, predict and regulate strategic interaction among agents who often have conflicting interests. In the surprisingly anodyne jargon of the theory, they 'play games'. This book offers an introduction to the basic tools of game theory and an overview of a number of applications to real-world cases, covering the areas of economics, politics and international relati