Reinhard Selten, to date the only German Nobel Prize laureate in economics, celebrates his 80th birthday in 2010. While his contributions to game theory are well-known, the behavioral side of his scientific work has received less public exposure, even though he has been committed to experimental research during his entire career, publishing more experimental than theoretical papers in top-tier journals. This Festschrift is dedicated to Reinhard Selten’s exceptional influence on behavioral and experimental economics. In this collection of academic highlight papers, a number of his students are joined by leading scholars in experimental research to document the historical role of the “Meister” in the development of the research methodology and of several sub-fields of behavioral economics. Next to the academic insight in these highly active fields of experimental research, the papers also provide a glance at Reinhard Selten’s academic and personal interaction with his students and peers.
The papers collected in this volume relate to game theory. They aim at the elaboration and discussion of basic con cepts, at the analysis of specific applied models and at the evaluation of experimental evidence. A game is a mathematical model of a situation where several actors with different goals are engaged in strategic inter action. Game theory explores the nature and the consequence. s of rational behavior in games. With respect to several papers in this volume, it seems to be appropriate to comment on later developments. A list of some important references is given at the end of the intro duction. References already included in the collected pa pers are not repeated here. In casual conversation colleagues sometimes observe that the author on the one hand goes to extremes in the elabora tion of the consequences of Bayesian rationality and on the other hand strongly emphasizes the limited rationality of actual decision behavior. This seeming discrepancy is also expressed in the collection presented here. The author thinks that a sharp distinction should be made between nor ~ative and descriptive game theory. This position of "methodological dualism" has been expressed in a comment to Aumann's paper "What is game theory trying to accomplish?" (Aumann, 1985, Selten 1985) Normative game theory has the important task to explore the nature and the consequences of idealized full rationality in strategic interaction. This requires a thorough discuss ion of first principles. Empirical arguments are irrelevant here.
This textbook sketches the history of experimental economics before moving on to describe how to set up an economics experiment and to survey selected applications and the latest methods.
The authors, two of the most prominent game theorists of this generation, have devoted a number of years to the development of the theory presented here, and to its economic applications. They propose rational criteria for selecting one particular uniformly perfect equilibrium point as the solution of any noncooperative game. And, because any cooperative game can be remodelled as a noncooperative bargaining game, their theory defines a one-point solution for any cooperative game as well.By providing solutions - based on the same principles of rational behavior - for all classes of games, both cooperative and noncooperative, both those with complete and with incomplete information, Harsanyi and Selten's approach achieves a remarkable degree of theoretical unification for game theory as a whole and provides a deeper insight into the nature of game-theoretic rationality.The book applies this theory to a number of specific game classes, such as unanimity games; bargaining with transaction costs; trade involving one seller and several buyers; two-person bargaining with incomplete information on one side, and on both sides. The last chapter discusses the relationship of the authors' theory to other recently proposed solution concepts, particularly the Kohberg-Mertens stability theory.John C. Harsanyi is Flood Research Professor in Business Administration and Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley. Reinhard Selten is Professor of Economics Institute of Social and Economic Sciences: University of Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany.
How do people behave in different traffic situations? Are there general laws for mathematical modelling of decision dynamics? The answers, given at the first international workshop on "Human Behaviour in Traffic Networks", are presented in this volume. In 13 articles, well-known experts report about their current work on experiments and modelling in this area. The topics range from psychological behaviour in traffic situations, traffic simulations of various aspects and market analysis to experiments with human participants used in experimental economics. The articles filled with many illustrations are aimed at interested students as well as experts in this field.
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