Games of Strategy

Publisher’s Notice
Halftitle
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Part One: Introduction and General Principles
Chapter 1: Basic Ideas and Examples
1 What Is a Game of Strategy?
2 Some Examples and Stories of Strategic Games
3 Our Strategy for Studying Games of Strategy
Chapter 2: How to Think about Strategic Games
1 Strategic Games
2 Classifying Games
3 Some Terminology and Background Assumptions
4 The Uses of Game Theory
5 The Structure of the Chapters to Follow
Summary
Exercises
Part Two: Fundamental Concepts and Techniques
Chapter 3: Games with Sequential Moves
1 Game Trees
2 Solving Games by Using Trees
3 Adding More Players
4 Order Advantages
5 Adding More Moves
6 Evidence Concerning Rollback
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 4: Simultaneous-Move Games: Discrete Strategies
1 Depicting Simultaneous-Move Games with Discrete Strategies
2 Nash Equilibrium
3 Dominance
4 Stronger and Weaker Forms of Dominance
5 Best-Response Analysis
6 Three Players
7 Multiple Equilibria in Pure Strategies
8 No Equilibrium in Pure Strategies
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 5: Simultaneous-Move Games: Continuous Strategies, Discussion, and Evidence
1 Pure Strategies That are Continuous Variables
2 Critical Discussion of the Nash Equilibrium Concept
3 Rationalizability
4 Empirical Evidence Concerning Nash Equilibrium
Summary
Exercises
Appendix: Finding a Value to Maximize a Function
Chapter 6: Combining Sequential and Simultaneous Moves
1 Games with Both Simultaneous and Sequential Moves
2 Changing the Order of Moves in a Game
3 Alternative Method of Analysis
4 Three-Player Games
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 7: Simultaneous-Move Games: Mixed Strategies
1 What Is a Mixed Strategy?
2 Mixing Moves
3 Nash Equilibrium as a System of Beliefs and Responses
4 Mixing in Non-Zero-Sum Games
5 General Discussion of Mixed-Strategy Equilibria
6 Mixing When One Player Has Three or More Pure Strategies
7 Mixing When Both Players Have Three Strategies
8 How to Use Mixed Strategies in Practice
9 Evidence on Mixing
Summary
Exercises
Appendix: Working with Probabilities
Summary
Part Three: Some Broad Classes of Strategies and Games
Chapter 8: Strategic Moves
1 A Classification of Strategic Moves
2 Commitments
3 Threats and Promises
4 Some Additional Topics
5 Making Your Strategic Moves Credible
6 Countering Your Opponent’s Strategic Moves
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 9: Uncertainty and Information
1 Strategies for Dealing with Risk
2 Asymmetric Information: Basic Ideas
3 Direct Communication, or “Cheap Talk”
4 Adverse Selection, Signaling, and Screening
5 Signaling in the Labor Market
6 Equilibria in Two-Player Signaling Games
7 Two-Way Asymmetric Information and Dynamic Chicken
Summary
Exercises
Appendix: Inferring Probabilities from Observing Consequences
Chapter 10: The Prisoners’ Dilemma and Repeated Games
1 The Basic Game (Review)
2 Changing the Way Moves Are Made: Repetition
3 Changing the Order of Moves: Promises
4 Changing Payoffs: Penalties and Rewards
5 Changing Payoffs: Leadership
6 Experimental Evidence
7 Real-World Dilemmas
Summary
Exercises
Appendix: Infinite Sums
Chapter 11: Collective-Action Games
1 Collective-Action Games with Two Players
2 Collective-Action Problems in Large Groups
3 Spillover Effects, or Externalities
4 A Brief History of Ideas
5 “Help!”: A Game of Chicken with Mixed Strategies
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 12: Evolutionary Games
1 The Framework
2 Some Classic Games in an Evolutionary Setting
3 The Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma
4 The Hawk–Dove Game
5 Evolution of Cooperation and Altruism
Summary
Exercises
Part Four: Applications to Specific Strategic Situations
Chapter 13: Brinkmanship: The Cuban Missile Crisis
1 A Brief Narrative of Events
2 A Simple Game-Theoretic Explanation
3 Brinkmanship with Well-Controlled Risk
4 Brinkmanship with Uncontrolled Risk: A Game of Dynamic Chicken
5 Practicing Brinkmanship
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 14: Design of Incentives
1 Price Discrimination
2 Some Terminology
3 Information-Revealing Contracts
4 Evidence Concerning Information-Revelation Mechanisms
5 Incentives for Effort: The Simplest Case
6 Incentives for Effort: Evidence and Extensions
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 15: Auctions, Bidding Strategy, and Auction Design
1 What Are Auctions?
2 The Winner’s Curse
3 Bidding in Auctions
4 Auction Design
5 Further Reading
Summary
Exercises
Appendix: Computing Bidding Equilibria
Chapter 16: Strategy and Voting
1 Voting Rules and Procedures
2 Voting Paradoxes
3 Evaluating Voting Systems
4 Strategic Voting
5 The Median Voter Theorem
Summary
Exercises
Chapter 17: Bargaining
1 The Nash Cooperative Solution
2 Variable-Threat Bargaining
3 Alternating-Offers Model I: Total Value Decays
4 Alternating-Offers Model II: Impatience
5 Experimental Evidence
6 Manipulating Information in Bargaining
7 Bargaining with Many Parties and Issues
Summary
Exercises
Glossary
Index