- Department: Economics and Related Studies
- Module co-ordinator: Dr. Peter Wagner
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
- See module specification for other years: 2021-22
Game theory models conflict and cooperation between rational decision-making agents. It has applications in a wide variety of areas, including statistical decision theory, artificial intelligence (online learning, multi-agent systems), economics and business (auctions, pricing, bargaining), biology (evolution, signaling behavior, fighting behavior), political science (stability of government, military strategy), and philosophy (ethics, morality and social norms).
Pre-requisite modules
Co-requisite modules
- None
Prohibited combinations
Game theory analyses strategic interaction using abstract mathematical models and formal reasoning. The module requires some basic calculus and algebra as well as familiarity with concepts such as sets, probability and mathematical optimisation.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2022-23 to Spring Term 2022-23 |
Teach students to use game theoretic reasoning to understand how individual incentives can shape strategic outcomes in a range of hypothetical situations and real-life applications.
On completing the module a student will be able to:
In Mathematical Economics, we discuss the essential elements and tools of analysis for game theory. We will consider “one-shot” and sequential games and discuss different solution concepts to form predictions for strategic outcomes. In the later part of the module, we study games with incomplete information in which one or more players may have private information about some aspect of the game. In this case, some players will face uncertainty about the actual game that they are playing, and as a result must form beliefs about the other players and the game when making decisions. We also look at social choice and mechanism design which turns the analysis that we have done so far on its head: instead of fixing a game and analysing the potential outcome, we fix the desired outcome, and ask what type of game can induce this outcome as equilibrium. You can think of this as some sort of economic engineering process which has been applied for the design of auctions and the distributions of food among food banks among others.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) Mathematical Economics |
3 hours | 100 |
None
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) Mathematical Economics |
3 hours | 100 |