Customer Reviews

A Course in Game Theory

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This text is a solid introduction to game theory for mathematical economists at the graduate level (but apparently logicians love it, too). In principle, the book could be read by someone without any prior knowledge of game theory, but I would strongly advise such a reader to spend some time on a less "dry" text (such as Kreps's "A Course in Microeconomic Theory") before (or at least while) taking up this one.

The authors (like Myerson's "Game Theory" and unlike both Kreps and Fudenberg and Tirole's "Game Theory") cover both non-cooperative and cooperative game theory, with a nice balance.

Two topics not covered in other major texts are "Complexity Considerations In Repeated Games" (Chapter 9) and "Implementation Theory" (Chapter 10). The implementation theory chapter is a wonderful introduction to the topic, but is unfortunately limited to the perfect information case (mechanism design under imperfect information is covered by both Fudenberg-Tirole and Myerson.)

The only application of game theory to which the authors devote considerable space is bargaining (those who know the authors won't be surprised!) - and its treatment could have been a little less abstract.

In sum, it is a very good book that is not dominated by (nor dominates) any of its competitors cited above. If I were to teach a graduate game theory course, I would probably adopt it as the major text and supplement it with papers and parts of the other books.

This was one of the first books I read in Game Theory, and definitely the hardest. Those who want a gentle introduction to the concepts of modern game theory might do better with a simpler text such as Gibbons. That said, there is no substitute for quality. The depth of analysis is entirely necessary to get to the meat of the theory.
Osborne and Rubinstein write extremely well, softening the blows of some of the more complicated concepts. Their own substantial publication records in the Game Theory literature do much to recommend their version of analysis over others.

I agree with a previous review that this book is not good for individuals. Solutions to the excersizes are only available to educators. If the book is assigned for a class and the teacher has access to the solutions and can coach the student through the excersizes this is probably a great book because of it's depth. It is probably also a good reference book for those already familar with the subject.
However if you are like me and were looking for a strong book that will help a motivated individual learn game theory this book is not for you. I have tried many of the excersizes and I am still not positive that I my answers are correct. The material in the book is very complex but accessible, that is not the problem. The problem is the lack of development because I can not go over my answers to the excersizes and see what I did right and what I did wrong...

The book provides numerous excercises but solutions are only
available to course instructors. I.e. the book is worthless for autodidactics.

The book is not that good for learning, notation very confused and the examples are not very good. It is an excellent reference because it has all the main results, but not a good book for a beginner.

This book makes a great reference for students and research interested in game-theoretic aspects of multiagent systems. Together with Fudenberg, et al, they are probably the most refered combination in MAS publications.

This book is a decent alternative to the Gibbons text (which I personally prefer). You could say this book is much more comprehensive and much more mathematical than Gibbons, though. My own opinion is that much of the game theory as described in this book is not general audience and sometimes very tedious if you are only interested in theory and not so much interested in real analysis.
If you find Gibbons to be too easy or way below your level, this book is one option. The more ideal option, though, would just be to start reading academic papers - as you are obviously ready to do so. That way you could get the knowledge first hand and wouldn't need to spend time on a very detailed second hand review of areas that may not be exactly what you are looking for.

This is book is very well written and easy to read and follow (Atleast for me, I have a masters and have done some research on game theory). It is not too mathematical.

Ten years after this good came out, Osborne wrote An Introduction to Game Theory, a more comprehensive and focused book that also takes a more leisurely pace and provides more concrete problems. Some have said that this book is better suited to graduate students, while "An Introduction" is more appropriate to undergrads. Speaking as someone who's taken game theory at both an undergraduate and graduate level, I don't see any advantage to this book in either context. It is concise, yes, but it is also dense and suffers from the authors' disagreements over several fundamental issues.

If you are looking for an advanced textbook in game theory, then I'd strongly recommend Ken Binmore's recent effort, Playing for Real. It's wide-ranging and rich in challenging problems.

If you are seriously interested in Game Theory, this is definitely a good book. Don't expect a light-reading, dummies oriented book.