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Yale ECON 159: Game Theory

Contents · 48

  1. 01-Introduction: Five First Lessons
  2. 01-Introduction: Five First LessonsIntroduces game theory as the study of strategic situations and its applications in economics, politics, law, biology, and sports. Covers course activities and video-recording consent.
  3. 02-Putting Yourselves into Other People's Shoes
  4. 02-Putting Yourselves into Other People's ShoesReviews normal-form games and the Prisoners’ Dilemma, illustrating its real-world applications and solutions that change incentives.
  5. 03-Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter Theorem
  6. 03-Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter TheoremModels candidates choosing political positions to maximize vote share, using voter distribution, closest-candidate voting, and tie-breaking to analyze dominated strategies.
  7. 04-Best Responses in Soccer and Business Partnerships
  8. 04-Best Responses in Soccer and Business PartnershipsExplains best responses and analyzes the penalty-kick game using scoring probabilities, payoffs, and dominant strategies.
  9. 05-Nash Equilibrium: Bad Fashion and Bank Runs
  10. 05-Nash Equilibrium: Bad Fashion and Bank RunsNash equilibrium’s formal definition, best responses, and motivations, including no regret and self-fulfilling beliefs.
  11. 06-Nash Equilibrium: Dating and Cournot
  12. 06-Nash Equilibrium: Dating and CournotCoordination games, communication and leadership, self-enforcing agreements, strategic complements, and the “Going to the Movies” example.
  13. 07-Nash Equilibrium: Shopping, Standing and Voting on a Line
  14. 07-Nash Equilibrium: Shopping, Standing and Voting on a LineBertrand competition models firms with identical products choosing prices rather than quantities, and compares the resulting market outcomes with Cournot competition.
  15. 08-Nash Equilibrium: Location, Segregation and Randomization
  16. 08-Nash Equilibrium: Location, Segregation and RandomizationHow candidate entry can shift election outcomes, why equilibria need not cluster at the center, and how far candidates can be from the center.
  17. 09-Mixed Strategies in Theory and Tennis
  18. 09-Mixed Strategies in Theory and TennisDefines mixed strategies as probability distributions over pure strategies and explains how to calculate their expected payoffs, using Battle of the Sexes as an example.
  19. 10-Mixed Strategies in Baseball, Dating and Paying Your Taxes
  20. 10-Mixed Strategies in Baseball, Dating and Paying Your TaxesChecks that a proposed mixed-strategy equilibrium is a best response, showing that no pure or mixed deviation improves a player’s payoff.
  21. 11-Evolutionary Stability: Cooperation, Mutation, and Equilibrium
  22. 11-Evolutionary Stability: Cooperation, Mutation, and EquilibriumIntroduces evolutionary game theory, modeling strategies as inherited behaviors and payoffs as genetic fitness, with applications to animal behavior and social sciences. Begins a simplified model of competition within species using symmetric two-player games and random pairings.
  23. 12-Evolutionary Stability: Social Convention, Aggression, and Cycles
  24. 12-Evolutionary Stability: Social Convention, Aggression, and CyclesEvolutionarily stable strategies in a simple game, then driving-side conventions as examples of multiple stable social conventions.
  25. 13-Sequential Games: Moral Hazard, Incentives, and Hungry Lions
  26. 13-Sequential Games: Moral Hazard, Incentives, and Hungry LionsIntroduces a cash-in-a-hat game to explore lender–borrower interactions and strategic decisions about investment, matching, and repayment.
  27. 14-Backward Induction: Commitment, Spies, and First-Mover Advantages
  28. 14-Backward Induction: Commitment, Spies, and First-Mover AdvantagesIntroduces the Stackelberg quantity-competition model, comparing sequential moves with Cournot competition and using backward induction to analyze the follower’s best response.
  29. 15-Backward Induction: Chess, Strategies, and Credible Threats
  30. 15-Backward Induction: Chess, Strategies, and Credible ThreatsExplains Zermelo’s theorem for finite, perfect-information games, showing how players can force a win or tie, and introduces backward induction through examples such as Nim and chess.
  31. 16-Backward Induction: Reputation and Duels
  32. 16-Backward Induction: Reputation and DuelsBackward induction, credible threats, and sequential entry by local competitors facing a monopolist across multiple markets.
  33. 17-Backward Induction: Ultimatums and Bargaining
  34. 17-Backward Induction: Ultimatums and BargainingUltimatum bargaining, backward induction, and how fairness and social preferences shape offer acceptance and rejection.
  35. 18-Imperfect Information: Information Sets and Sub-Game Perfection
  36. 18-Imperfect Information: Information Sets and Sub-Game PerfectionIntroduces information sets and shows how imperfect observation changes a sequential game and the use of backward induction.
  37. 19-Subgame Perfect Equilibrium: Matchmaking and Strategic Investments
  38. 19-Subgame Perfect Equilibrium: Matchmaking and Strategic InvestmentsReviews imperfect information, strategies, subgames, and subgame perfection, then analyzes a sequential game where backward induction competes with safe play if a player may deviate.
  39. 20-Subgame Perfect Equilibrium: Wars of Attrition
  40. 20-Subgame Perfect Equilibrium: Wars of AttritionIntroduces a fight-or-quit game, where players weigh the prize for outlasting an opponent against the cost of mutual fighting.
  41. 21-Repeated Games: Cooperation vs. the End Game
  42. 21-Repeated Games: Cooperation vs. the End GameExplores when repeated interaction can sustain cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma through future rewards and punishments.
  43. 22-Repeated Games: Cheating, Punishment, and Outsourcing
  44. 22-Repeated Games: Cheating, Punishment, and OutsourcingRepeated Prisoner’s Dilemma, credible cooperation and punishment, and subgame-perfect equilibrium in indefinitely repeated relationships.
  45. 23-Asymmetric Information: Silence, Signaling and Suffering Education
  46. 23-Asymmetric Information: Silence, Signaling and Suffering EducationHow firms’ private cost information influences Cournot competition, and why a low-cost firm may reveal its type while a high-cost firm may conceal it.
  47. 24-Asymmetric Information: Auctions and the Winner's Curse
  48. 24-Asymmetric Information: Auctions and the Winner's CurseIntroduces auctions under uncertain bidder valuations, distinguishing common-value and private-value goods, with oil wells and homes as examples.