Game theory in the social sciences

Game Theory in the Social Sciences is what the game theory world has been waiting for for the last 25 years. Since the publication of Games and Decisions by Luce and Raiffa in there has been no book directed specifically at the social scientist that surveys this exciting and dynamic field that underlies so much of today's economic and political theory.

Shubik outlines the methods and tools of modern game theory in a way that is comprehensible even to those with very little mathematical training. There are many examples ample discussion of conceptual questions and clear indications of the applications. In short it is bound to become a classic It was initially developed to understand a large variety of economic behaviors, including behavior of firms, markets, and consumers.

The use of the game theory has since expanded in the social sciences and has been applied to political, sociological, and psychological behaviors as well.

Game theory was first used to describe and model how human populations behave. Some scholars believe that they can actually predict how actual human populations will behave when confronted with situations analogous to the game being studied. This particular view of game theory has been criticized because the assumptions made by the game theorists are often violated. For example, they assume that players always act in a way to directly maximize their wins, when in reality this is not always true.

Altruistic and philanthropic behavior would not fit this model. We can use the interaction of asking someone out for a date as a simple example of game theory and how there are game-like aspects involved. There are three main elements of a game:. There are several different kinds of games that are studies using game theory:.

In this scenario, two partners in crime are separated into separate rooms at the police station and given a similar deal. If one testifies against his partner and the partner stays quiet, the betrayer goes free and the partner receives the full sentence ex: ten years.

If both remain silent, both are sentences for a short time in jail ex: one year or for a minor charge. If each testifies against the other, each receives a moderate sentence ex: three years. Each prisoner must choose to either betray or remain silent, and the decision of each is kept from the other.

Take, for example, the issue of women wearing make-up. Each day across America, several million woman-hours are devoted to an activity with questionable benefit for society. Foregoing makeup would free up fifteen to thirty minutes for each woman every morning. These situations include, for example, the competition among firms in an oligopolistic market, the struggle between candidates in an election campaign, the wage bargaining between a worker and an employer, and the rivalry between states locked in an arms race.

Although originally developed and applied in economics, game theory is now commonly used in political science and is beginning to be applied more widely throughout the social sciences to model strategic interaction.

This course offers a non-technical introduction to game theory with a special emphasis on examples and applications drawn from economics, political science, and the other social sciences.