- Syllabus – EconS 424, Spring 2022
- Class slides classified by topics:
- Introduction to games, ingredients, and representation.
- Dominance solvable games: application of Iterative Deletion of Strictly Dominated Strategies (IDSDS) and Iterative Deletion of Weakly Dominated Strategies (IDWDS).
- Nash equilibrium in games with two players.
- Nash equilibrium in games with N players.
- Application: Matching grants in public good games.
- Application: Strategizing in courses that curve grades.
- Nash equilibrium with continuous action spaces.
- Mixed strategy equilibria (msNE) with two players.
- Mixed strategy equilibria (msNE) with N players.
- Strictly competitive games, and max-min strategies.
- Sequential-move games, and subgame perfect equilibrium (SPNE).
- Application: The game of Checkers is solved.
- Application: “Split or Steal” game in Golden Balls.
- Strategic pre-commitment.
- Bargaining games over finite and infinite periods.
- Repeated games:
- Games of incomplete information – Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE):
- Applications of BNE to games with continuous actions:
- Cournot competition under incomplete information.
- Auction Theory. Paper and Slides.
- More applications of BNE – Information aggregation among several players.
- From Bayesian Nash Equilibrium (BNE) to Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium (PBE). Link and Handout.
- A systematic procedure for finding all pure-strategy PBEs: Paper and slides.
- Applications of PBE:
- How to find Semi-separating PBEs (involving mixed strategies):
- Cheap Talk games (signaling with costless messages):
- Signaling games in which both players (sender and receiver) are privately informed about their own type.
- Equilibrium refinement criteria (the “Intuitive Criterion” and the “Divinity Criterion”).
- Weekly review sessions (practice exercises with answers):
- Representation of games and strategies.
- Dominated strategies and Nash equilibrium (with extra exercises).
- Nash equilibrium in games with continuous action spaces.
- Mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium.
- Backward induction and subgame perfection.
- Bargaining games and repeated games I
- Repeated games II
- Games with incomplete information I
- Games with incomplete information II and Auction Theory
- Signaling games I
- Signaling games II
- Signaling games III
- You can find detailed answer keys to over 150 exercises in my book: Strategy and Game Theory, Practice Exercises with Answers, Springer-Verlag (2nd edition), Link and eBook format.
- Homework assignments:
- Exams: