This book bridges optimal control theory and economics, discussing ordinary differential equations, optimal control, game theory, and mechanism design in one volume. Technically rigorous and largely self-contained, it provides an introduction to the use of optimal control theory for...

In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we try to analyze every option? When should we use our intuition and when should we rely on logic and statistics? Most of us would probably agree that for important decisions, we should follow certain guidelines--gather as much...

Humans are, first and foremost, social creatures. And this, according to the authors of I'll Have What She's Having, shapes—and explains—most of our choices. We're not just blindly driven by hard-wired instincts to hunt or gather or reproduce; our decisions are based on more than “nudges”...

Economists have traditionally studied aggregate behavior as the outcome of individual decisions made interactively, while sociologists have focused on the role of social influences on individual behavior. Over the past decade, however, the barriers between the disciplines have broken down,...

Citizen participation in such complex issues as the quality of the environment, neighborhood housing, urban design, and economic development often brings with it suspicion of government, anger between stakeholders, and power plays by many—as well as appeals to rational argument. Deliberative...

In Game Theory and the Social Contract, Ken Binmore argues that game theory provides a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters. His reinterpretation of classical social contract ideas within a game-theoretic framework generates new insights into the fundamental questions of social...

This volume brings together all of Ken Binmore's influential experimental papers on bargaining along with newly written commentary in which Binmore discusses the underlying game theory and addresses the criticism leveled at it by behavioral economists. When Binmore began his experimental work in...

Evolutionary game theory attempts to predict individual behavior (whether of humans or other species) when interactions between individuals are modeled as a noncooperative game. Most dynamic analyses of evolutionary games are based on their normal forms, despite the fact that many interesting...

Robert Aumann's groundbreaking career in game theory has spanned over 35 years. These two volumes provide convenient access to all of his major research--from his doctoral dissertation in 1956 to papers as recent as January 1995. Threaded through all of Aumann's work (symbolized in his thesis on...

The "oligopoly problem"--the question of how prices are formed when the market contains only a few competitors--is one of the more persistent problems in the history of economic thought. In this book Xavier Vives applies a modern game-theoretic approach to develop a theory of oligopoly pricing....