The wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win. So wrote Zhuge Liang, the great Chinese military strategist. He was referring to battlefield tactics, but the same can be said about any strategic situation. Even seemingly certain defeat can be turned into victory whether in battle, business, or life by those with the strategic vision to recognize how to change the game to their own advantage.

The aim of David McAdams s Game-Changer is nothing less than to empower you with this wisdom not just to win in every strategic situation (or game ) you face but to change those games and the ecosystems in which they reside to transform your life and our lives together for the better.

Game-Changer develops six basic ways to change games commitment, regulation, cartelization, retaliation, trust, and relationships enlivened by countless colorful characters and unforgettable examples from the worlds of business, medicine, finance, military history, crime, sports, and more.

The book then digs into several real-world strategic challenges, such as how to keep prices low on the Internet, how to restore the public s lost trust in for-charity telemarketers, and even how to save mankind from looming and seemingly unstoppable drug-resistant disease. In each case, McAdams uses the game-theory approach developed in the book to identify the strategic crux of the problem and then leverages that game-awareness to brainstorm ways to change the game to solve or at least mitigate the underlying problem.

So get ready for a fascinating journey. You ll emerge a deeper strategic thinker, poised to change and win all the games you play. In doing so, you can also make the world a better place. Just one Game-Changer is] enough to seed and transform an entire organization into a more productive, happier, and altogether better place, McAdams writes. Just imagine what we can do together."

This textbook presents worked-out exercises on game theory with detailed step-by-step explanations. While most textbooks on game theory focus on theoretical results, this book focuses on providing practical examples in which students can learn to systematically apply theoretical solution concepts to different fields of economics and business. The text initially presents games that are required in most courses at the undergraduate level and gradually advances to more challenging games appropriate for graduate level courses. The first six chapters cover complete-information games, separately analyzing simultaneous-move and sequential-move games, with applications in industrial economics, law, and regulation. Subsequent chapters dedicate special attention to incomplete information games, such as signaling games, cheap talk games, and equilibrium refinements, emphasizing common steps and including graphical illustrations to focus students' attention on the most relevant payoff comparisons at each point of the analysis. In addition, exercises are ranked according to their difficulty, with a letter (A-C) next to the exercise number. This allows students to pace their studies and instructors to structure their classes accordingly. By providing detailed worked-out examples, this text gives students at various levels the tools they need to apply the tenets of game theory in many fields of business and economics. The second edition of the text has been revised to provide additional exercises at the introductory and intermediate level, expanding the scope of the book to be appropriate for upper undergraduate students looking to improve their understanding of the subject. The second edition also includes a new chapter devoted entirely to cheap talk games. Revised to appeal to a larger audience of instructors and students, this text is appropriate for introductory-to-intermediate courses in game theory at the upper undergraduate and graduate levels.

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 relations. Each chapter is accompanied by some suggestions about further reading.

Many of today's most commercially successful videogames, from Call of Duty to Company of Heroes, are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by recent news headlines or drawn from history. While such games are marketed as authentic representations of war, they often provide a selective form of realism that eschews problematic, yet salient aspects of war. In addition, changes in the way Western states wage and frame actual wars makes contemporary conflicts increasingly resemble videogames when perceived from the vantage point of Western audiences. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from games studies, media and cultural studies, politics and international relations, and related fields to examine the complex relationships between military-themed videogames and real-world conflict, and to consider how videogames might deal with history, memory, and conflict in alternative ways. It asks: What is the role of videogames in the formation and negotiation of cultural memory of past wars? How do game narratives and designs position the gaming subject in relation to history, war and militarism? And how far do critical, anti-war/peace games offer an alternative or challenge to mainstream commercial titles?

The rise of game theory has made bargaining one of the core issues in economic theory. Written at a theoretical and conceptual level, the book develops a framework for the analysis of bargaining processes. The framework focuses on the dynamic of the bargaining process, which is in contrast to much previous theoretical work on the subject, and most notably to the approaches stemming from game theory. Chapters include: * Decision-Making and Expectations in Theories of Bargaining * Decision-Making and Expectations in a Game Theory Model * Limitations of the Environment Concept * Game Theory as a Basis for a Theory of Bargaining * The Decision/Expectation/adjustment Approach * The Adjustment Process * Direct Interdependence and the Consistency of Decisions

This book analyzes the following four distinct, although not dissimilar, areas of social choice theory and welfare economics: nonstrategic choice, Harsanyi's aggregation theorems, distributional ethics and strategic choice. While for aggregation of individual ranking of social states, whether the persons behave strategically or non-strategically, the decision making takes place under complete certainty; in the Harsanyi framework uncertainty has a significant role in the decision making process. Another ingenious characteristic of the book is the discussion of ethical approaches to evaluation of inequality arising from unequal distributions of achievements in the different dimensions of human well-being. Given its wide coverage, combined with newly added materials, end-chapter problems and bibliographical notes, the book will be helpful material for students and researchers interested in this frontline area research. Its lucid exposition, along with non-technical and graphical illustration of the concepts, use of numerical examples, makes the book a useful text.

Game theory is the science of interaction. This textbook, derived from courses taught by the author and developed over several years, is a comprehensive, straightforward introduction to the mathematics of non-cooperative games. It teaches what every game theorist should know: the important ideas and results on strategies, game trees, utility theory, imperfect information, and Nash equilibrium. The proofs of these results, in particular existence of an equilibrium via fixed points, and an elegant direct proof of the minimax theorem for zero-sum games, are presented in a self-contained, accessible way. This is complemented by chapters on combinatorial games like Go; and, it has introductions to algorithmic game theory, traffic games, and the geometry of two-player games. This detailed and lively text requires minimal mathematical background and includes many examples, exercises, and pictures. It is suitable for self-study or introductory courses in mathematics, computer science, or economics departments.

Steadily growing applications of game theory in modern science (including psychology, biology and economics) require sources to provide rapid access in both classical tools and recent developments to readers with diverse backgrounds. This book on game theory, its applications and mathematical methods, is written with this objective in mind.The book gives a concise but wide-ranging introduction to games including older (pre-game theory) party games and more recent topics like elections and evolutionary games and is generously spiced with excursions into philosophy, history, literature and politics. A distinguished feature is the clear separation of the text into two parts: elementary and advanced, which makes the book ideal for study at various levels.Part I displays basic ideas using no more than four arithmetic operations and requiring from the reader only some inclination to logical thinking. It can be used in a university degree course without any (or minimal) prerequisite in mathematics (say, in economics, business, systems biology), as well as for self-study by school teachers, social and natural scientists, businessmen or laymen. Part II is a rapid introduction to the mathematical methods of game theory, suitable for a mathematics degree course of various levels.To stimulate the mathematical and scientific imagination, graphics by a world-renowned mathematician and mathematics imaging artist, A T Fomenko, are used. The carefully selected works of this artist fit remarkably into the many ideas expressed in the book.This new edition has been updated and enlarged. In particular, two new chapters were added on statistical limit of games with many agents and on quantum games, reflecting possibly the two most stunning trends in the game theory of the 21st century.

Dynamic optimization is rocket science and more. This volume teaches how to harness the modern theory of dynamic optimization to solve practical problems, not only from space flight but also in emerging social applications such as the control of drugs, corruption, and terror. These innovative domains are usefully thought about in terms of populations, incentives, and interventions, concepts which map well into the framework of optimal dynamic control. This volume is designed to be a lively introduction to the mathematics and a bridge to these hot topics in the economics of crime for current scholars. We celebrate Pontryagin s Maximum Principle that crowning intellectual achievement of human understanding and push its frontiers by exploring models that display multiple equilibria whose basins of attraction are separated by higher-dimensional DNSS "tipping points." That rich theory is complemented by numerical methods available through a companion web site."

Praised by "Entertainment Weekly" as "the man who put the fizz into physics," Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, "Rock, Paper, Scissors" will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.

This book describes highly applicable mathematics without using calculus or limits in general. The study agrees with the opinion that the traditional calculus/analysis is not necessarily the only proper grounding for academics who wish to apply mathematics. The choice of topics is based on a desire to present those facets of mathematics which will be useful to economists and social/behavioral scientists. The volume is divided into seven chapters. Chapter I presents a brief review of the solution of systems of linear equations by the use of matrices. Chapter III introduces the theory of probability. The rest of the book deals with new developments in mathematics such as linear and dynamic programming, the theory of networks and the theory of games. These developments are generally recognized as the most important field in the new mathematics' and they also have specific applications in the management sciences.

Game Theory and the Law is a collection of previously published articles in which ideas from game theory and the economics of asymmetric information are applied to legal issues. Game theory's method is to simplify a situation by describing it in terms of players, actions, payoffs, after which the players' strategic interactions can be described. Whether used explicitly or implicitly, this is a highly useful approach to law. This important volume collects together the classic articles on the subject together with surveys of the approach and illustrative examples of the use of game theory in law.

The financial market melt-down of the years 2007-2009 has posed great challenges for studies on financial economics. This financial economics text focuses on the dynamic interaction of financial markets and economic activity. The financial market to be studied here encompasses the money and bond market, credit market, stock market and foreign exchange market; economic activity includes the actions and interactions of firms, banks, households, governments and countries. The book shows how economic activity affects asset prices and the financial market, and how asset prices and financial market volatility and crises impact economic activity. The book offers extensive coverage of new and advanced topics in financial economics such as the term structure of interest rates, credit derivatives and credit risk, domestic and international portfolio theory, multi-agent and evolutionary approaches, capital asset pricing beyond consumption-based models, and dynamic portfolio decisions. Moreover a completely new section of the book is dedicated to the recent financial market meltdown of the years 2007-2009. Emphasis is placed on empirical evidence relating to episodes of financial instability and financial crises in the U.S. and in Latin American, Asian and Euro-area countries. Overall, the book explains what researchers and practitioners in the financial sector need to know about the financial-real interaction, and what practitioners and policy makers need to know about the financial market.

This book presents a survey of the aspects of economic complexity, with a focus on foundational, interdisciplinary ideas. The long-awaited follow up to his 2011 volume Complex Evolutionary Dynamics in Urban-Regional and Ecologic-Economic Systems: From Catastrophe to Chaos and Beyond, this volume draws together the threads of Rosser's earlier work on complexity theory and its wide applications in economics and an expanded list of related disciplines. The book begins with a full account of the broader categories of complexity in economics--dynamic, computational, hierarchical, and structural--before shifting to more detailed analysis. The next two chapters address problems associated with computational complexity, especially those of computability, and discuss the Godel Incompleteness Theorem with a focus on reflexivity. The middle chapters discuss the relationship between entropy, econophysics, evolution, and economic complexity, respectively, with applications in urban and regional dynamics, ecological economics, general equilibrium theory, as well as financial market dynamics. The final chapter works to bring together these themes into a broader framework and expose some of the limits concerning analysis of deeper foundational issues. With applications in all disciplines characterized by interconnected nonlinear adaptive systems, this book is appropriate for graduate students, professors and practitioners in economics and related disciplines such as regional science, mathematics, physics, biology, environmental sciences, philosophy, and psychology.

This comprehensive textbook introduces readers to the principal ideas and applications of game theory, in a style that combines rigor with accessibility. Steven Tadelis begins with a concise description of rational decision making, and goes on to discuss strategic and extensive form games with complete information, Bayesian games, and extensive form games with imperfect information. He covers a host of topics, including multistage and repeated games, bargaining theory, auctions, rent-seeking games, mechanism design, signaling games, reputation building, and information transmission games. Unlike other books on game theory, this one begins with the idea of rationality and explores its implications for multiperson decision problems through concepts like dominated strategies and rationalizability. Only then does it present the subject of Nash equilibrium and its derivatives.

"Game Theory" is the ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. Throughout, concepts and methods are explained using real-world examples backed by precise analytic material. The book features many important applications to economics and political science, as well as numerous exercises that focus on how to formalize informal situations and then analyze them. Introduces the core ideas and applications of game theory Covers static and dynamic games, with complete and incomplete information Features a variety of examples, applications, and exercises Topics include repeated games, bargaining, auctions, signaling, reputation, and information transmission Ideal for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students Complete solutions available to teachers and selected solutions available to students

Based on the "Fourth International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters" (Kalamata, Greece, July 2019), this volume includes contributions from experts who share their latest discoveries on natural and unnatural disasters. Authors provide overviews of the tactical points involved in disaster relief, outlines of hurdles from mitigation and preparedness to response and recovery, and uses for mathematical models to describe natural and man-made disasters. Topics covered include economics, optimization, machine learning, government, management, business, humanities, engineering, medicine, mathematics, computer science, behavioral studies, emergency services, and environmental studies will engage readers from a wide variety of fields and backgrounds.

A key direction for research in systems and control involves engineering systems. These are highly distributed collective systems (with decisions, information and objectives distributed throughout) that involve humans. As a result, decisions have the potential to be influenced by socioeconomic factors outside the realm of limited computation capacities. Engineering systems emphasize the potential of control and games beyond traditional applications and game theory can be used to design incentives to obtain socially desirable behaviours on the part of the players, including changing consumption patterns or better traffic distribution. This unique book addresses both the foundations of game theory, with emphasis on the physical intuition behind the concepts, and new trends in the study of cooperation and competition in large complex distributed systems. It is ideal for students and researchers in several aspects of engineering, as well as for social scientists or biologists working on adaption mechanisms and evolutionary dynamics.

This proceedings book presents state-of-the-art developments in theory, methodology, and applications of network analysis across sociology, computational science, education research, literature studies, political science, international relations, social media research, and urban studies. The papers comprising this collection were presented at the Fifth 'Networks in the Global World' conference organized by the Centre for German and European Studies of St. Petersburg University and Bielefeld University and held on July 7-9, 2020. This biannual conference series revolves around key interdisciplinary issues in the focus of network analysts, such as the multidimensional approach to social reality, translation of theories and methods across disciplines, and mixing of data and methods. The distinctive features of this book are the emphasis on in-depth linkages between theory, method, and applications, the blend of qualitative and quantitative methods, and the joint consideration of different network levels, types, and contexts. The topics covered by the papers include interrelation of social and cultural structures, constellations of power, and patterns of interaction in areas ranging from various types of communities (local, international, educational, political, and so on) to social media and literature. The book is useful for practicing researchers, graduate and postgraduate students, and educators interested in network analysis of social relations, politics, economy, and culture. Features that set the book apart from others in the field: * The book offers a unique cross-disciplinary blend of computational and ethnographic network analyses applied to a diverse spectrum of spheres, from literature and education to urban planning and policymaking. * Embracing conceptual, methodological, and empirical works, the book is among the few in network analysis to emphasize connections between theory, method, and applications. * The book brings together authors and empirical contexts from all over the globe, with a particular emphasis on European societies.

This book provides the fundamental theory of distributed optimization, game and learning. It includes those working directly in optimization,-and also many other issues like time-varying topology, communication delay, equality or inequality constraints,-and random projections. This book is meant for the researcher and engineer who uses distributed optimization, game and learning theory in fields like dynamic economic dispatch, demand response management and PHEV routing of smart grids.

"Efficient breach" is one of the most discussed topics in the literature of law and economics. What remedy incentivizes the parties of a contract to perform contracts if and only if it is efficient? This book provides a new perception based on an in-depth analysis of the impact the market structure, asymmetry of information, and deviations from the rational choice model have, comprehensively. The author compares the two predominant remedies for breach of contract which have been adopted by most jurisdictions and also found access to international conventions like the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CiSG): Specific performance and expectation damages. The book illustrates the complexity such a comparison has under more realistic assumptions. The author shows that no simple answer is possible, but one needs to account for the circumstances. The comparison takes an economic approach to law applying game theory. The game-theoretic models are consistent throughout the entire book which makes it easy for the reader to understand what effects different assumptions about the market structure, the distribution of information, and deviations from the rational choice model have, and how they are intertwined.

This book comprises selected papers of the 25th International Conference on Difference Equations and Applications, ICDEA 2019, held at UCL, London, UK, in June 2019. The volume details the latest research on difference equations and discrete dynamical systems, and their application to areas such as biology, economics, and the social sciences. Some chapters have a tutorial style and cover the history and more recent developments for a particular topic, such as chaos, bifurcation theory, monotone dynamics, and global stability. Other chapters cover the latest personal research contributions of the author(s) in their particular area of expertise and range from the more technical articles on abstract systems to those that discuss the application of difference equations to real-world problems. The book is of interest to both Ph.D. students and researchers alike who wish to keep abreast of the latest developments in difference equations and discrete dynamical systems.

This book includes papers presented at the ISDG12-GTM2019 International Meeting on Game Theory, as a joint meeting of the 12th International ISDG Workshop and the 13th "International Conference on Game Theory and Management", held in St. Petersburg in July 2019. The topics cover a wide range of game-theoretic models and include both theory and applications, including applications to management.

This book includes up-to-date contributions in the broadly defined area of probabilistic analysis of voting rules and decision mechanisms. Featuring papers from all fields of social choice and game theory, it presents probability arguments to allow readers to gain a better understanding of the properties of decision rules and of the functioning of modern democracies. In particular, it focuses on the legacy of William Gehrlein and Dominique Lepelley, two prominent scholars who have made important contributions to this field over the last fifty years. It covers a range of topics, including (but not limited to) computational and technical aspects of probability approaches, evaluation of the likelihood of voting paradoxes, power indices, empirical evaluations of voting rules, models of voters' behavior, and strategic voting. The book gathers articles written in honor of Gehrlein and Lepelley along with original works written by the two scholars themselves.

Gaming the Market: Applying Game Theory to Create Winning Trading Strategies is the first book to show investors how game theory is applicable to decisions about buying and selling stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, and options. As a practical trading guide, Gaming the Market will help investors master this revolutionary approach, and employ it to their advantage.

Although game theory has been studied since the 1940s, it has only recently been applied to the world of finance. Game theory champions garnered the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics, and, today, this theory is used to analyze everything from the baseball strike to FCC auctions. Increasingly, game theory is making its mark as a potent tool for traders. In Gaming the Market, economist Ronald B. Shelton provides a model that enables traders to predict profitability and, as a result, make effective buy and sell decisions.

Stated simply, game theory is the study of conflict based on a formal approach to decision making that views decisions as choices made in a game. Whether playing individually or in a group, each player in a conflict has more than one course of action available to him, and the outcome of the "game" depends on the interaction of the strategies pursued by each. Shelton offers real-world examples that reveal how the principles of game theory drive financial markets --and how these same principles can be used to develop winning investment strategies. Through Shelton's organized and precise explanations--he uses familiar games such as chess and checkers to illustrate his points --readers gain a solid understanding of the key principles of game theory before applying them to actual financial market situations.

Gaming the Market examines the interaction between price fluctuations and risk acceptance levels and gradually constructs a game theory model which proves that there are probability-based formulas for determining the profitability of any given trade.

With appendixes on T-Bond futures, mathematical representations of the model, and QuickBasic code for calculating relative frequencies, Gaming the Market provides a thorough overview of the rules and strategies of game theory. This indispensable reference will prove invaluable to novice and seasoned players alike.

Are the markets a game? What are the rules? Who are the players?

How can you, as a player, come up with a winning strategy?

Now, acclaimed economist Ronald B. Shelton shows you how to master the power of game theory in the first trader's guide to this revolutionary approach to investment decisions!

"It's not often that a refreshingly new idea appears in the field of trading strategies or risk management, but Ronald B. Shelton has taken pieces from game theory and betting strategies and transformed them into a new, visual way to make trading decisions. . . . He has been able to put a value on trading situations which can increase your ability to manage risk as well as clarify expectations --both essential ingredients for success." --from the Foreword by Perry Kaufman author of The New Commodity Trading Systems and Methods.

"Gaming the Market is a very welcome and most useful new guide to playing profitably in the biggest and most complex game ever devised -- speculating in the financial markets. Investors and traders who study this book will gain valuable insights into the real nature of the markets and willlearn how to play the game to win." --Thomas A. Bierovic, President, Synergy Futures.

"Ronald B. Shelton has extended the field of excursion analysis with an innovative and provocative book that is sure to be widely read--and controversial. By examining the actual distributions of price excursion, he shows a technique to estimate your odds going in on a new position, and within the context of game theory, how to evaluate those chances. All traders and analysts seeking objective bases for trading will want to read this book." --John Sweeney, Technical Editor, Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine.

Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional economics. Both disciplines, however, still have great difficulty talking with each other. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history. In turn, the shared cultural belief-systems underlying institutions and the symbolic ways in which these are reproduced remain invisible in the material record. This book explores ways to bring both disciplines closer together by building a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate and integrate archaeological proxy-data in economic history research. Rather than the linear interpretations offered by neoclassical or neomalthusian models, we argue that complexity economics, based on system theory, offers a promising way forward.