Customer Reviews

Game Theory and Economic Modelling (Clarendon Lectures in Economics)

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This is an offhand lecture by a professional in the field. It's not a textbook or a monograph - it is a side look at the state of the field. The author explains why game theory was useful in explaining various phenomena, but at the same time gives us hints for why it failed to explain others. You will learn that the abundancy of equilibria and structure in repeated games will enable you to prove almost anything, which is the weakness rather than a strength of this tool. Kreps defines the limits of the field and tells the reader what is yet to be done in game theory - and why.

A good read after a theoretical textbook. It allows you to stop, turn around and ask yourself a few fundamental questions.

I picked up this book a couple of weeks back in order to broaden my knowledge of Game Theory in the field of economic modeling. Since I was looking for an introduction with brief explanations of topics, a few pointers etc.; I would say, I was very pleased with the content matter as well as with the manner of presentation.

What it is NOT: As have been mentioned by a few reviewers, this work is NOT a detailed text-book in Game Theory, or its varied applications, or Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Modeling. If you're looking for any or all of these, kindly refer to other works.

What it is: Instead, it's a very nice introduction into the world of "non-cooperative game theoretic economic modeling" especially in the context of bargaining between employers and workers, optimizing production function(s) for monopolistic firms, detecting incredible and credible threats etc. The introductions to Normal and Strategic forms of non-cooperative games theoretic representations, the "Folk Theorem", "von Stackelberg" type repetitive games etc are very nicely exemplified.

Kindly bear in mind: As the author mentions at the very beginning, it is not a text book. Anyone starting out on a journey of Game Theory in Macro-economic and Micro-economic modeling would do well, if he/she would read this work and then move on to a more comprehensive text-book. Since this work is not voluminous in size and very easily piled up (both to the author's credit), it's a very nice introduction to the subject.

4th March, 2006

Subhasish Ghosh
St. Cross College, University of Oxford

The intro suggests that this book is for a casual reader who is looking to understand Game Theory. I agree. I read this book along with the text by the same author and am very pleased that I did. I can understand his textbook much easier after reading the book. I feel like the book is a very interesting read, which never gets too technical. He indicates several points where a textbook would be better, that in this format he is just looking to give an overview. Regardless, I have found that studying game theory is much better having read this book. The topic can be a little overwhelming at first, but with Kreps, it comes out fine in the end.

Its alright, I guess. Rasmusen is much better.