ECON 159: Game Theory

Class Sessions

Click session titles below to access audio, video, and course materials.

1. Introduction: five first lessons
2. Putting yourselves into other people's shoes
3. Iterative deletion and the median-voter theorem
4. Best responses in soccer and business partnerships
5. Nash equilibrium: bad fashion and bank runs
6. Nash equilibrium: dating and Cournot
7. Nash equilibrium: shopping, standing and voting on a line
8. Nash equilibrium: location, segregation and randomization
9. Mixed strategies in theory and tennis
10. Mixed strategies in baseball, dating and paying your taxes
11. Evolutionary stability: cooperation, mutation, and equilibrium
12. Evolutionary stability: social convention, aggression, and cycles
Midterm Exam
13. Sequential games: moral hazard, incentives, and hungry lions
14. Backward induction: commitment, spies, and first-mover advantages
15. Backward induction: chess, strategies, and credible threats
16. Backward induction: reputation and duels
17. Backward induction: ultimatums and bargaining
18. Imperfect information: information sets and sub-game perfection
19. Subgame perfect equilibrium: matchmaking and strategic investments
20. Subgame perfect equilibrium: wars of attrition
21. Repeated games: cooperation vs. the end game
22. Repeated games: cheating, punishment, and outsourcing
23. Asymmetric information: silence, signaling and suffering education
24. Asymmetric information: auctions and the winner's curse
Final Exam