Aim: To present a systematic development of the theory of combinatorial games from the ground up. Approach: Computational complexity. Combinatorial games are completely determined; the questions of interest are efficiencies of strategies. Methodology: Divide and conquer. Ascend from Nim to Chess...

This paper is a brief history of game theory with its main theme being the nature of the decision makers assumed in the various stages of its historical development. It demonstrates that changes in the "image of man" nourished the developments of what many believe to be progress in game theory....

Aim: To present a systematic development of the theory of combinatorial games from the ground up. Approach: Computational complexity. Combinatorial games are completely determined; the questions of interest are efficiencies of strategies. Methodology: Divide and conquer. Ascend from Nim to Chess...

This paper examines an equilibrium model of social memory -- a society's vicarious beliefs about its past. We show that incorrect social memory is a key ingredient in creating and perpetuating destructive conflicts. We analyze an infinite-horizon model in which two countries face off each period...

There is an ongoing discussion about the relationship of power and preferences: Is power reflected in what the agents can do and what they want to do, or, alternatively, are preferences and power two separate dimensions of determining the outcome of decisionmaking? In the latter case...

A buyer procures a network to span a given set of nodes; each seller bids to supply certain edges, then the buyer purchases a minimal cost spanning tree. An efficient tree is constructed in any equilibrium of the Bertrand game.

Consider a contest for a prize in which each player knows his/her own ability, but may or may not know those of his/her rivals (the complete or incomplete information regimes). Our main result is that, if the value of the prize is high, more effort and output are engendered under incomplete...

In a quantity-competition oligopoly, previous studies have shown that a price-taking firm can outperform any rival with identical technology that produces at a different output level at any intertemporal equilibrium. This research seeks to examine this seemingly counter-intuitive fact in a...

We consider an economy with two types of firms (innovative and non-innovative) and two types of workers (skilled and unskilled), where workers' decisions are driven by imitative behavior, and thus the evolution of such an economy depends on the initial distribution of the firms. We show that...

This chapter explores the state of the emerging practice of designing markets by the use of agent-based modeling, with special reference to electricity markets and computerized (on-line) markets, perhaps including real-life electronic agents as well as human traders. The paper first reviews the...