This book presents a study of cooperatives as a two-layer entrepreneurial model, and analyzes cooperative enterprises. Above all, it explores how inducements (from the firm) and contributions (from its members, in their respective roles) are aligned, and seeks to answer the question of what this means for managing each cooperative as a firm as well as a group. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which begins with an analysis of specific aspects of cooperative enterprises, with a focus on the added value of cooperation, the weighing of interests, and a behavioral perspective on the imminent communities and their goals. In a structured approach, the book examines the various facets of relationships in cooperatives on a transactional, financial and control level. Further, a case study on the Dutch cooperative Rabobank illustrates what happens when members fail. In turn, part two concentrates on integrating the lessons learned with the existing economic literature on cooperatives, so as to contribute to a theory of cooperative management. Finally, the book links the theoretical approach to practice: in the third part, it reports on the outcomes of using a computerized simulation game to show members of cooperatives how to manage their business and the cooperative business at the same time, enabling them to understand and actively practice two-level entrepreneurship.

This contributed volume combines approaches of the current inequality debate with aspects of finance based on profound macroeconomic model analyses. Research on inequality has had a long tradition in economics. With the financial crisis from 2007, not only output decreased tremendously, but also inequality has risen since then. The book presents selected contributions of a workshop held at Bielefeld University in 2016 and features additional papers written by experts in the field. A mixture of established researchers and young scholars presents both theoretical and empirical frameworks to analyze the subject.

This book discusses the state-of-the-art and open problems in computational finance. It presents a collection of research outcomes and reviews of the work from the STRIKE project, an FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) project in which academic partners trained early-stage researchers in close cooperation with a broader range of associated partners, including from the private sector. The aim of the project was to arrive at a deeper understanding of complex (mostly nonlinear) financial models and to develop effective and robust numerical schemes for solving linear and nonlinear problems arising from the mathematical theory of pricing financial derivatives and related financial products. This was accomplished by means of financial modelling, mathematical analysis and numerical simulations, optimal control techniques and validation of models. In recent years the computational complexity of mathematical models employed in financial mathematics has witnessed tremendous growth. Advanced numerical techniques are now essential to the majority of present-day applications in the financial industry. Special attention is devoted to a uniform methodology for both testing the latest achievements and simultaneously educating young PhD students. Most of the mathematical codes are linked into a novel computational finance toolbox, which is provided in MATLAB and PYTHON with an open access license. The book offers a valuable guide for researchers in computational finance and related areas, e.g. energy markets, with an interest in industrial mathematics.

This book proposes several commonly used interval-valued solution concepts of interval-valued cooperative games with transferable utility. It thoroughly investigates these solutions, thereby establishing the properties, models, methods, and applications. The first chapter proposes the interval-valued least square solutions and quadratic programming models, methods, and properties. Next, the satisfactory-degree-based non-linear programming models for computing interval-valued cores and corresponding bisection algorithm are explained. Finally, the book explores several simplification methods of interval-valued solutions: the interval-valued equal division and equal surplus division values; the interval-valued Shapley, egalitarian Shapley, and discounted Shapley values; the interval-valued solidarity and generalized solidarity values; and the interval-valued Banzhaf value. This book is designed for individuals from different fields and disciplines, such as decision science, game theory, management science, operations research, fuzzy sets or fuzzy mathematics, applied mathematics, industrial engineering, finance, applied economics, expert system, and social economy as well as artificial intelligence. Moreover, it is suitable for teachers, postgraduates, and researchers from different disciplines: decision analysis, management, operations research, fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy system analysis, applied mathematics, systems engineering, project management, supply chain management, industrial engineering, applied economics, and hydrology and water resources.

This proceedings book presents selected contributions from the XVIII Congress of APDIO (the Portuguese Association of Operational Research) held in Valenca on June 28-30, 2017. Prepared by leading Portuguese and international researchers in the field of operations research, it covers a wide range of complex real-world applications of operations research methods using recent theoretical techniques, in order to narrow the gap between academic research and practical applications. Of particular interest are the applications of, nonlinear and mixed-integer programming, data envelopment analysis, clustering techniques, hybrid heuristics, supply chain management, and lot sizing and job scheduling problems. In most chapters, the problems, methods and methodologies described are complemented by supporting figures, tables and algorithms. The XVIII Congress of APDIO marked the 18th installment of the regular biannual meetings of APDIO - the Portuguese Association of Operational Research. The meetings bring together researchers, scholars and practitioners, as well as MSc and PhD students, working in the field of operations research to present and discuss their latest works. The main theme of the latest meeting was Operational Research Pro Bono. Given the breadth of topics covered, the book offers a valuable resource for all researchers, students and practitioners interested in the latest trends in this field.

The book provides a thorough treatment of set functions, games and capacities as well as integrals with respect to capacities and games, in a mathematical rigorous presentation and in view of application to decision making. After a short chapter introducing some required basic knowledge (linear programming, polyhedra, ordered sets) and notation, the first part of the book consists of three long chapters developing the mathematical aspects. This part is not related to a particular application field and, by its neutral mathematical style, is useful to the widest audience. It gathers many results and notions which are scattered in the literature of various domains (game theory, decision, combinatorial optimization and operations research). The second part consists of three chapters, applying the previous notions in decision making and modelling: decision under uncertainty, decision with multiple criteria, possibility theory and Dempster-Shafer theory.

This book presents new efficient methods for optimization in realistic large-scale, multi-agent systems. These methods do not require the agents to have the full information about the system, but instead allow them to make their local decisions based only on the local information, possibly obtained during communication with their local neighbors. The book, primarily aimed at researchers in optimization and control, considers three different information settings in multi-agent systems: oracle-based, communication-based, and payoff-based. For each of these information types, an efficient optimization algorithm is developed, which leads the system to an optimal state. The optimization problems are set without such restrictive assumptions as convexity of the objective functions, complicated communication topologies, closed-form expressions for costs and utilities, and finiteness of the system's state space.

This book shows that the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum can be considered a natural labelled transition system, and based on this, it proposes high-level programming models for controlling the plasmodium behaviour. The presented programming is a form of pure behaviourism: the authors consider the possibility of simulating all basic stimulus-reaction relations. As plasmodium is a good experimental medium for behaviouristic models, the book applies the programming tools for modelling plasmodia as unconventional computers in different behavioural sciences based on studying the stimulus-reaction relations. The authors examine these relations within the framework of a bio-inspired game theory on plasmodia they have developed i.e. within an experimental game theory, where, on the one hand, all basic definitions are verified in experiments with Physarum polycephalum and Badhamia utricularis and, on the other hand, all basic algorithms are implemented in the object-oriented language for simulations of plasmodia. The results allow the authors to propose that the plasmodium can be a model for concurrent games and context-based games.

This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on the dynamics and coevolution in multi-level strategic interaction games. As such it summarizes the results of the European CONGAS project, which developed new mathematical models and tools for the analysis, prediction and control of dynamical processes in systems possessing a rich multi-level structure and a web of interwoven interactions among elements with autonomous decision-making capabilities. The framework is built around game theoretical concepts, in particular evolutionary and multi-resolution games, and includes also techniques drawn from graph theory, statistical mechanics, control and optimization theory. Specific attention is devoted to systems that are prone to intermittency and catastrophic events due to the effect of collective dynamics.

Game theory now provides the theoretical underpinning for a multitude of courses in economics worldwide. The speed of these developments has been remarkable and they have constituted something of a revolution. Indeed, the basic tenets of game theory have now begun to colonize other social sciences and its proponents have been unified in claiming its natural basis as a rational theory of society.
But the technical demands of the subject and the lack of clarity of many commentators' explanations have been a problem for many. This second edition of Shaun Hargreaves-Heap and Yanis Varoufakis's classic text strips away the mystique and lets the student make his or her own mind up. This new edition:
* lays bear the philosophy behind game theory and explains all its major concepts
* conducts a clear explanation and careful analysis of all the main 'games', such as repeated games and the prisoner's dilemma, as well as less well-trodden topics such as experimental games and issues of rationality
* introduces and analyses new areas of game theory such as "evolutionary games" and "Psychological games"
Retaining the most popular features from the original edition, this latest version offers improved pedagogy, new questions for discussion, new chapters on the latest developments as well as a host of new examples. A new generation of students of game theory will grow to appreciate this superb text whilst fans of the first edition will eagerly devour this long-awaited update.

This book is a comprehensive introduction of the reader into the simulation and modelling techniques and their application in the management of organisations. The book is rooted in the thorough understanding of systems theory applied to organisations and focuses on how this theory can apply to econometric models used in the management of organisations. The econometric models in this book employ linear and dynamic programming, graph theory, queuing theory, game theory, etc. and are presented and analysed in various fields of application, such as investment management, stock management, strategic decision making, management of production costs and the lifecycle costs of quality and non-quality products, production quality Management, etc.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in non-linear dynamics and sunspots. These two topics have been the core of an international conference on instability and public policies in a globalized world, organized at Aix-Marseille School of Economics and GREQAM in honor of Jean-Michel Grandmont. He has made significant contributions on general equilibrium theory, monetary theory, learning, aggregation, non-linear dynamics and sunspots. This book assembles contributions by Jean-Michel Grandmont's colleagues, students and friends that have been influenced by his works and that are at the frontier of research in this domain today.

This book discusses recent developments in mathematical programming and game theory, and the application of several mathematical models to problems in finance, games, economics and graph theory. All contributing authors are eminent researchers in their respective fields, from across the world. This book contains a collection of selected papers presented at the 2017 Symposium on Mathematical Programming and Game Theory at New Delhi during 9-11 January 2017. Researchers, professionals and graduate students will find the book an essential resource for current work in mathematical programming, game theory and their applications in finance, economics and graph theory. The symposium provides a forum for new developments and applications of mathematical programming and game theory as well as an excellent opportunity to disseminate the latest major achievements and to explore new directions and perspectives.

This collection of essays represents responses by over eighty scholars to an unusual request: give your high level assessment of the field of economic design, as broadly construed. Where do we come from? Where do we go from here? The book editors invited short, informal reflections expressing deeply felt but hard to demonstrate opinions, unsupported speculation, and controversial views of a kind one might not normally risk submitting for review. The contributors - both senior researchers who have shaped the field and promising, younger researchers - responded with a diverse collection of provocative pieces, including: retrospective assessments or surveys of the field; opinion papers; reflections on critical points for the development of the discipline; proposals for the immediate future; "science fiction"; and many more. The readers should have fun reading these unusual pieces - as much as the contributors enjoyed writing them.

This book integrates the fundamentals, methodology, and major application fields of noncooperative and cooperative games including conflict resolution. The topics addressed in the book are discrete and continuous games including games represented by finite trees; matrix and bimatrix games as well as oligopolies; cooperative solution concepts; games under uncertainty; dynamic games and conflict resolution. The methodology is illustrated by carefully chosen examples, applications and case studies which are selected from economics, social sciences, engineering, the military and homeland security. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in the in-depth and up-to-date integration of the theory and ever-expanding application areas of game theory.

This book primarily addresses various game theory phenomena in the context of management practice. As such, it helps readers identify the profound game theory principles behind these phenomena. At the same time, the game theory principles in the book can also provide a degree of guidance for solving practical problems.As one of the main areas in management research, there is already an extensive body of literature on game theory. However, it remains mainly theoretical, focusing on abstract arguments and purely numerical examples purely. This book addresses that gap, helping readers apply game theory in their actual management or research work.

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to cooperative game theory and a practice-oriented reference guide to new models and tools for studying bilateral fuzzy relations among several agents or players. It introduces the reader to several fuzzy models, each of which is first analyzed in the context of classical games (crisp games) and subsequently in the context of fuzzy games. Special emphasis is given to the value of Shapley, which is presented for the first time in the context of fuzzy games. Students and researchers will find here a self-contained reference guide to cooperative fuzzy games, characterized by a wealth of examples, descriptions of a wide range of possible situations, step-by-step explanations of the basic mathematical concepts involved, and easy-to-follow information on axioms and properties.

This book provides the state of the art in the simulation and gaming study field by systematically collecting excellent papers presented at the 46th International Simulation and Gaming Association annual conference held in Kyoto 17-25 July 2015. Simulation and gaming has been used in a wide variety of areas ranging from early childhood education and school-age children, universities, and professional education, to policy exploration and social problem solving. Moreover, it now been drastically changing its features in the Internet Of Things (IOT) society while taking over a wide variety of aliases, such as serious games and gamification. Most of the papers on which this book's chapters are based were written by academic researchers, both up-and-coming and well known. In addition, simulation and gaming is a translational system science going from theory to clinical cross-disciplinary topics. With this book, therefore, graduate students and higher-level researchers, educators, and practitioners can become familiar with the state-of-the-art academic research on simulation and gaming in the network society of the twenty-first century.

In recent years there has been a significant increase of interest in continuous-time Principal-Agent models, or contract theory, and their applications. Continuous-time models provide a powerful and elegant framework for solving stochastic optimization problems of finding the optimal contracts between two parties, under various assumptions on the information they have access to, and the effect they have on the underlying "profit/loss" values. This monograph surveys recent results of the theory in a systematic way, using the approach of the so-called Stochastic Maximum Principle, in models driven by Brownian Motion.

Optimal contracts are characterized via a system of Forward-Backward Stochastic Differential Equations. In a number of interesting special cases these can be solved explicitly, enabling derivation of many qualitative economic conclusions.

Aligning the latest practices, innovations and case studies with academic frameworks and theories, the broad area of multi-criteria and game theory applications in manufacturing and logistics is covered in comprehensive detail.

Divided into two parts, part I is dedicated to multi-criteria applications and includes chapters on logistics with a focus on vehicle routing problems, a multi-objective decision making approach to select the best storage policy and an exploratory study to predict the most important factors that can lead to successful mobile supply chain management adoption for manufacturing firms. Part II covers game theory applications and encompasses the process of forming a coalition within a corporate network to the problem of integrating inventory and distribution optimization together with game theory to effectively manage supply networks.

Providing a forum to investigate, exchange novel ideas and disseminate knowledge covering the broad area of multi-criteria and game theory applications in manufacturing and logistics, "Applications of Multi-Criteria and Game Theory Approaches" is an excellent reference for students, researchers but also managers and industry professionals working with manufacturing and logistics issues."

This book provides recent results of game theory for networking applications. The contributors address the major opportunities and challenges in applying traditional game theory as well as intelligent game theory to the understanding and designing of modern network systems, with emphasis on both new analytical techniques and novel application scenarios. After an overview of game theory for networks, the book narrows in on game theory in communications, game theory in wireless networks, and game theory applications. The book features contributions from researchers and professionals around the world. Presents a variety of perspectives on game theory for networking applications; Shows how game theory can apply to the study of data traffic, new generation networks, and smartgrid; Includes recent results of applied game theory for networks, providing some technical progresses in GAMENETS.

The popularity of smart phones and other mobile devices has brought about major expansion in the realm of wireless communications. With this growth comes the need to improve upon network capacity and overall user experience, and game-based methods can offer further enhancements in this area. Game Theory Framework Applied to Wireless Communication Networks is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the application of game-theoretic approaches to enhance wireless networking. Featuring prevailing coverage on a range of topics relating to the advanced game model, mechanism designs, and effective equilibrium concepts, this publication is an essential reference source for researchers, students, technology developers, and engineers. This publication features extensive, research-based chapters across a broad scope of relevant topics, including potential games, coalition formation game, heterogeneous networks, radio resource allocation, coverage optimization, distributed dynamic resource allocation, dynamic spectrum access, physical layer security, and cooperative video transmission.

This book provides an overview of the concept of economic psychology from behavioral and mathematical perspectives and related theoretical and empirical findings. Economic psychology is defined briefly as a general term for descriptive theories to explain the psychological processes of microeconomic behaviors and macroeconomic phenomena. However, the psychological methodology and knowledge of economic psychology have also been applied widely in such fields as economics, business administration, and engineering, and they are expected to become increasingly useful in the future-a trend suggested in several eminent scholars' studies. The book explains the numerous behavioral and mathematical models of economic psychology related to micro- and macroeconomic phenomena that have been proposed in the past, and introduces new models that are useful to explain human economic behaviors. It concludes with speculations about the future of modern economic psychology, referring to its connection with fields related to neuroscience, such as neuroeconomics, which have been developed in recent years. Readers require no advanced expertise; nonetheless, an introductory understanding of psychology, business administration, and economics, and a high- school-graduate level of mathematics are useful. To aid readers, each chapter includes a bibliography, which can be referred for more details related to economic psychology.

This textbook for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Evolutionary Game Theory covers recent developments in the field, with an emphasis on economic contexts and applications. It begins with the basic ideas as they originated within the field of theoretical biology and then proceeds to the formulation of a theoretical framework that is suitable for the study of social and economic phenomena from an evolutionary perspective. Core topics include the Evolutionary Stable Strategy (EES) and Replicator Dynamics (RD), deterministic dynamic models, and stochastic perturbations. A set of short appendices presents some of the technical material referred to in the main text. Evolutionary theory is widely viewed as one of the most promising appraoches to understanding bounded rationality, learning, and change in complex social environments. New avenues of research are suggested by Vega-Redondo, and plentiful exmples illustrate the theory's potential applications. The recent boom experienced by this dscipline makes the book's systematic presentation of its essential contributions vital reading for newcomer to the field.

This book presents cutting-edge contributions in the areas of control theory and partial differential equations. Over the decades, control theory has had deep and fruitful interactions with the theory of partial differential equations (PDEs). Well-known examples are the study of the generalized solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations arising in deterministic and stochastic optimal control and the development of modern analytical tools to study the controllability of infinite dimensional systems governed by PDEs. In the present volume, leading experts provide an up-to-date overview of the connections between these two vast fields of mathematics. Topics addressed include regularity of the value function associated to finite dimensional control systems, controllability and observability for PDEs, and asymptotic analysis of multiagent systems. The book will be of interest for both researchers and graduate students working in these areas.