Game Theory
Ming-hung Weng
Course Syllabus
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Office Hours: in Room 27603 (6th floor of
Yun-Ping Building)
Tuesdays 10-12 PM, other time by appointment.
Website:
http://myweb.ncku.edu.tw/~mhweng/game.ht
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Required Text
Games of Strategy, 2nd edition, Avinash Dixit &
Susan Skeath. (2003) Norton (華泰代理)
Suggested Text
A Primer in Game Theory, Robert Gibbons,
Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Game Theory, Drew Fudenberg and Jean Tirole,
The MIT Press.
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Course Objectives
Game theory, within the last several decades, has grown into one
of the most important and popular tools used in understanding
the interactions between individuals, institutes, or countries,
especially in the fields of economics, business, politics and
biology. Though it is based on a strong mathematic foundation,
this course aims at providing the introductory concepts and
techniques to the undergraduate students.
The first half of this course will be devoted to explore the
structure of the game by introducing different forms and styles
of them and their solution concepts. The class will turn its focus
on several popular applications of game theory during the
second half after students getting more familiar with the solution
concepts.
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Course Evaluation
Homework
Term Paper
Presentation
Class Participation
Midterm
Final
20%
10%
5%
5%
30%
30%
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First of all, since this is an English-lectured class,
all assignments and tests should be completed in
English.
Homework: There’ll be homework assigned for each
chapter covered. Homework needs not be handed in.
However, there’ll be a short quiz when the assignment
is due with questions coming exactly from the
homework. The lowest grades will be excluded
when evaluating the average, which will weight
20% of the overall grades.
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Term Paper: By Dec 24th, students will form groups
(2-3 students) to submit a short (3-10 pages, 11-pt-font,
single-line spaced) paper where they apply their
concepts and techniques of game theory to explain
phenomenon(s) they observe from their daily lives, the
news or the history.
Presentation: After receiving some comments from
the instructor, each group will have an in-class
presentation (10-15 minutes, in English) with
PowerPoint to demonstrate and justify the observation
in their paper.
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Class Participation: This part will basically
evaluate students’ attendances and performance
in the class.
Midterms: There’ll be one midterm and one
final. Both are mandatory.
About Game Theory
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John Forbes Nash Jr., A Beautiful Mind
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John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.
1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
Antoine Augustin Cournot's
Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the
Theory of Wealth) in 1838
Eric Maskin
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What to expect from learning game theory?
What is a game?
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Models analyzing interactions among parties or
individuals.
How do they interact?
Simultaneous moves (Static Games)
Sequential moves (Dynamic Games)
How long do they interact?
One-shot Games
Repeated Games (finite/infinite periods)
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How are their interests related?
Zero (Constant) sum game
Nonzero (Nonconstant) sum game
How well do they observe each other’s moves?
Perfect information game
Imperfect information game
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How well do they know the game played?
Complete information
Incomplete (asymmetric) information
Terminologies
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Strategies
A complete plan of actions
Pure vs. mixed strategies
Payoffs
Utility
Rationality
Utility maximizer
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Common Knowledge of Rules
Knowing each other knowing how the game is
played and etc.
Equilibrium
Nash Equilibrium and etc.
Observation and Experiment
Traveler’s dilemma