The project of writing this monograph was conceived in August 2006. It is a m- ter of delight and satisfaction that this monograph would be published during the centenary year (May 27, 2008 - May 26, 2009) of our dear alma mater, the Indian Institute of Science, which is truly a magni cent temple and an eternal source of inspiration, with a splendid ambiance for research. Studying the rational behavior of entities interacting with each other in or- nized or ad-hoc marketplaces has been the bread and butter of our research group here at the Electronic Commerce Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science. Speci cally, the application of game th- retic modeling and mechanism design principles to the area of network economics was an area of special interest to the authors. In fact, the dissertations of the s- ond, third, and fourth authors (Dinesh Garg, Ramasuri Narayanam, and Hastagiri Prakash) were all in this area. Dinesh Garg's Doctoral Thesis, which later won the Best Dissertation Award at the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science for the academic year 2006-07, included an interesting chapter on applying the brilliant work of Roger Myerson (Nobel laureate in E- nomic Sciences in 2007) to the topical problem of sponsored search auctions on the web. Ramasuri's Master's work applied mechanism design to develop robust broadcastprotocolsin wireless adhoc networkswhile Hastagiri's Master's work - veloped resource allocation mechanisms for computational grids.

The project of writing this monograph was conceived in August 2006. It is a m- ter of delight and satisfaction that this monograph would be published during the centenary year (May 27, 2008 - May 26, 2009) of our dear alma mater, the Indian Institute of Science, which is truly a magni cent temple and an eternal source of inspiration, with a splendid ambiance for research. Studying the rational behavior of entities interacting with each other in or- nized or ad-hoc marketplaces has been the bread and butter of our research group here at the Electronic Commerce Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science. Speci cally, the application of game th- retic modeling and mechanism design principles to the area of network economics was an area of special interest to the authors. In fact, the dissertations of the s- ond, third, and fourth authors (Dinesh Garg, Ramasuri Narayanam, and Hastagiri Prakash) were all in this area. Dinesh Garg's Doctoral Thesis, which later won the Best Dissertation Award at the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science for the academic year 2006-07, included an interesting chapter on applying the brilliant work of Roger Myerson (Nobel laureate in E- nomic Sciences in 2007) to the topical problem of sponsored search auctions on the web. Ramasuri's Master's work applied mechanism design to develop robust broadcastprotocolsin wireless adhoc networkswhile Hastagiri's Master's work - veloped resource allocation mechanisms for computational grids.

This book offers a self-sufficient treatment of a key tool, game theory and mechanism design, to model, analyze, and solve centralized as well as decentralized design problems involving multiple autonomous agents that interact strategically in a rational and intelligent way. The contents of the book provide a sound foundation of game theory and mechanism design theory which clearly represent the "science" behind traditional as well as emerging economic applications for the society.The importance of the discipline of game theory has been recognized through numerous Nobel prizes in economic sciences being awarded to game theorists, including the 2005, 2007, and 2012 prizes. The book distills the marvelous contributions of these and other celebrated game theorists and presents it in a way that can be easily understood even by senior undergraduate students.A unique feature of the book is its detailed coverage of mechanism design which is the art of designing a game among strategic agents so that a social goal is realized in an equilibrium of the induced game. Another feature is a large number of illustrative examples that are representative of both classical and modern applications of game theory and mechanism design. The book also includes informative biographical sketches of game theory legends, and is specially customized to a general engineering audience.After a thorough reading of this book, readers would be able to apply game theory and mechanism design in a principled and mature way to solve relevant problems in computer science (esp, artificial intelligence/machine learning), computer engineering, operations research, industrial engineering and microeconomics.