GAME THEORY AND ECONOMIC APPLICATIONS (Econ 521)

TTh 11:00am-12:15pm, BIOCHEMISTRY 1125
Professor: Marzena Rostek
Office hours: Tu, 5:30pm-6:30pm, 7440 SS

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SYLLABUS
All other official materials (problem sets, handouts, practice exams, solutions etc.)
will be posted at Learn@UW.

READINGS: W=Watson, O=Osborne

L1 (Jan 24): What is game theory? “Guess the Number” game. Dominance.
W: Ch 1, Ch 6 (pp. 51-55); O: Ch 1, Ch 2 Sections 2.1-2.2.

L2 (Jan 26): Strictly and weakly dominated strategies. Iterated dominance. Common knowledge.
W: Ch 5, Ch 7; O: Sections 2.9.1-2, 12.2-12.4.

L3 (Jan 31): Best response.
W: Ch 4, Ch 6 (pp. 56-62); O: Section 2.8.

L4 (Feb 2): Synergistic relationship. Externalities. Best response with continuous strategies.
W: Ch 8 (pp. 80-86); O: pp. 39-41; PS1 due.

L5 (Feb 7): Outcomes versus payoffs. Nash Equilibrium.
W: Ch 9 (pp. 92-102); O: Section 2.3, 2.5-2.6.

L6 (Feb 9): Nash Equilibrium-examples and interpretation.
W: Ch 7 (pp. 71-72); O: Section 2.7; PS2 due.

L7 (Feb 14): Oligopolistic competition. Cournot model.
W: Ch 10 (pp. 107-109); O: Section 3.1.

L8 (Feb 16): Collusion in Cournot model. Bertrand model. Solving for NE without calculus.
W: Ch 10 (pp. 109-114); O: Section 3.2; PS 3 due.

L9 (Feb 21): Electoral competition. Mixed strategies.
W: Ch 8 (pp. 77-80), Ch 11; O: Section 3.3; 4.1-4.2.

L10 (Feb 23): Mixed strategy Nash Equilibrium.
W: pp. 383-385, Ch 11; O: Section 4.3. PS 4 due.

LINKS:
Practice, practice, practice!
History of Game Theory
Econ glossary
Movie
Autobiographies:
Robert J. Aumann
John C. Harsanyi
Daniel Kahneman
John F. Nash
Thomas C. Schelling
Reinhard Selten
Vernon Smith

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