Is There Room for Game Theory in the Austrian Paradigm? 53
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Uniqueness and Symmetry in Bargaining Theories of Justice
Philos Stud DOI 10.1007/s11098-013-0121-y Uniqueness and symmetry in bargaining theories of justice John Thrasher Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract For contractarians, justice is the result of a rational bargain. The goal is to show that the rules of justice are consistent with rationality. The two most important bargaining theories of justice are David Gauthier’s and those that use the Nash’s bargaining solution. I argue that both of these approaches are fatally undermined by their reliance on a symmetry condition. Symmetry is a substantive constraint, not an implication of rationality. I argue that using symmetry to generate uniqueness undermines the goal of bargaining theories of justice. Keywords David Gauthier Á John Nash Á John Harsanyi Á Thomas Schelling Á Bargaining Á Symmetry Throughout the last century and into this one, many philosophers modeled justice as a bargaining problem between rational agents. Even those who did not explicitly use a bargaining problem as their model, most notably Rawls, incorporated many of the concepts and techniques from bargaining theories into their understanding of what a theory of justice should look like. This allowed them to use the powerful tools of game theory to justify their various theories of distributive justice. The debates between partisans of different theories of distributive justice has tended to be over the respective benefits of each particular bargaining solution and whether or not the solution to the bargaining problem matches our pre-theoretical intuitions about justice. There is, however, a more serious problem that has effectively been ignored since economists originally J. -
Matchings and Games on Networks
Matchings and games on networks by Linda Farczadi A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Combinatorics and Optimization Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2015 c Linda Farczadi 2015 Author's Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract We investigate computational aspects of popular solution concepts for different models of network games. In chapter 3 we study balanced solutions for network bargaining games with general capacities, where agents can participate in a fixed but arbitrary number of contracts. We fully characterize the existence of balanced solutions and provide the first polynomial time algorithm for their computation. Our methods use a new idea of reducing an instance with general capacities to an instance with unit capacities defined on an auxiliary graph. This chapter is an extended version of the conference paper [32]. In chapter 4 we propose a generalization of the classical stable marriage problem. In our model the preferences on one side of the partition are given in terms of arbitrary bi- nary relations, that need not be transitive nor acyclic. This generalization is practically well-motivated, and as we show, encompasses the well studied hard variant of stable mar- riage where preferences are allowed to have ties and to be incomplete. Our main result shows that deciding the existence of a stable matching in our model is NP-complete. -
John Von Neumann Between Physics and Economics: a Methodological Note
Review of Economic Analysis 5 (2013) 177–189 1973-3909/2013177 John von Neumann between Physics and Economics: A methodological note LUCA LAMBERTINI∗y University of Bologna A methodological discussion is proposed, aiming at illustrating an analogy between game theory in particular (and mathematical economics in general) and quantum mechanics. This analogy relies on the equivalence of the two fundamental operators employed in the two fields, namely, the expected value in economics and the density matrix in quantum physics. I conjecture that this coincidence can be traced back to the contributions of von Neumann in both disciplines. Keywords: expected value, density matrix, uncertainty, quantum games JEL Classifications: B25, B41, C70 1 Introduction Over the last twenty years, a growing amount of attention has been devoted to the history of game theory. Among other reasons, this interest can largely be justified on the basis of the Nobel prize to John Nash, John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten in 1994, to Robert Aumann and Thomas Schelling in 2005 and to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson in 2007 (for mechanism design).1 However, the literature dealing with the history of game theory mainly adopts an inner per- spective, i.e., an angle that allows us to reconstruct the developments of this sub-discipline under the general headings of economics. My aim is different, to the extent that I intend to pro- pose an interpretation of the formal relationships between game theory (and economics) and the hard sciences. Strictly speaking, this view is not new, as the idea that von Neumann’s interest in mathematics, logic and quantum mechanics is critical to our understanding of the genesis of ∗I would like to thank Jurek Konieczny (Editor), an anonymous referee, Corrado Benassi, Ennio Cavaz- zuti, George Leitmann, Massimo Marinacci, Stephen Martin, Manuela Mosca and Arsen Palestini for insightful comments and discussion. -
Introduction to Game Theory
Economic game theory: a learner centred introduction Author: Dr Peter Kührt Introduction to game theory Game theory is now an integral part of business and politics, showing how decisively it has shaped modern notions of strategy. Consultants use it for projects; managers swot up on it to make smarter decisions. The crucial aim of mathematical game theory is to characterise and establish rational deci- sions for conflict and cooperation situations. The problem with it is that none of the actors know the plans of the other “players” or how they will make the appropriate decisions. This makes it unclear for each player to know how their own specific decisions will impact on the plan of action (strategy). However, you can think about the situation from the perspective of the other players to build an expectation of what they are going to do. Game theory therefore makes it possible to illustrate social conflict situations, which are called “games” in game theory, and solve them mathematically on the basis of probabilities. It is assumed that all participants behave “rationally”. Then you can assign a value and a probability to each decision option, which ultimately allows a computational solution in terms of “benefit or profit optimisation”. However, people are not always strictly rational because seemingly “irrational” results also play a big role for them, e.g. gain in prestige, loss of face, traditions, preference for certain colours, etc. However, these “irrational" goals can also be measured with useful values so that “restricted rational behaviour” can result in computational results, even with these kinds of models. -
From Economic Security to Financial Insecurity
Forum Finance and Society 2017, 3(2): 188-96 © The Author(s) Perpetual anarchy: From economic 10.2218/finsoc.v3i2.2578 security to financial insecurity S.M. Amadae Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Marieke de Goede argues that there has traditionally been a close relationship between finance and both national security and the economic security of nations. Hence, “finance cannot be understood to be a new security concept” (Goede, 2010: 109, emphasis in original). This is because financial soundness is essential to individual and national economic security, and fiscal wherewithal is crucial to maintaining military presence. The smooth functioning of an economy enables the funding of military protection. Conversely, as the recent global financial crisis once again demonstrated, national sovereignty itself depends on economic solvency that is a function of the prudential financial management of firms and governments. De Goede discusses this two-directional relationship with respect to how finance plays an instrumental role in making it possible to maintain national security, and how finance itself directly relates to the viability of households and nations, which require a positive balance of outputs against inputs. She also addresses a third way to consider the relationship between finance and security in view of their historical and conceptual entanglement. From this perspective, the development of modern nation states is inseparable from financial instruments including, for example, those of sovereign debt. Considered historically, after World War II financial tools evolve, and “risk comes into focus as a technique [insofar as it is quantified] that bridges finance and security” (de Goede, 2010: 107, emphasis in original). -
Study of the Evolution of Symbiosis at the Metabolic Level Using Models from Game Theory and Economics Martin Wannagat
Study of the evolution of symbiosis at the metabolic level using models from game theory and economics Martin Wannagat To cite this version: Martin Wannagat. Study of the evolution of symbiosis at the metabolic level using models from game theory and economics. Quantitative Methods [q-bio.QM]. Université de Lyon, 2016. English. NNT : 2016LYSE1094. tel-01394107v2 HAL Id: tel-01394107 https://hal.inria.fr/tel-01394107v2 Submitted on 22 Nov 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. No d’ordre NNT : xxx THÈSE DE DOCTORAT DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE LYON opérée au sein de l’Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 École Doctorale ED01 E2M2 Spécialité de doctorat : Bioinformatique Soutenue publiquement/à huis clos le 04/07/2016, par : Martin Wannagat Study of the evolution of symbiosis at the metabolic level using models from game theory and economics Devant le jury composé de : Nom Prénom, grade/qualité, établissement/entreprise Président(e) Bockmayr Alexander, Prof. Dr., Freie Universität Berlin Rapporteur Jourdan Fabien, CR1, INRA Toulouse Rapporteur Neves Ana Rute, Dr., Chr. Hansen A/S Rapporteure Charles Hubert, Prof., INSA Lyon Examinateur Andrade Ricardo, Dr., INRIA Rhône-Alpes Examinateur Sagot Marie-France, DR, LBBE, INRIA Rhône-Alpes Directrice de thèse Stougie Leen, Prof., Vrije Universiteit, CWI Amsterdam Co-directeur de thèse Marchetti-Spaccamela Alberto, Prof., Sapienza Univ. -
Koopmans in the Soviet Union
Koopmans in the Soviet Union A travel report of the summer of 1965 Till Düppe1 December 2013 Abstract: Travelling is one of the oldest forms of knowledge production combining both discovery and contemplation. Tjalling C. Koopmans, research director of the Cowles Foundation of Research in Economics, the leading U.S. center for mathematical economics, was the first U.S. economist after World War II who, in the summer of 1965, travelled to the Soviet Union for an official visit of the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Koopmans left with the hope to learn from the experiences of Soviet economists in applying linear programming to economic planning. Would his own theories, as discovered independently by Leonid V. Kantorovich, help increasing allocative efficiency in a socialist economy? Koopmans even might have envisioned a research community across the iron curtain. Yet he came home with the discovery that learning about Soviet mathematical economists might be more interesting than learning from them. On top of that, he found the Soviet scene trapped in the same deplorable situation he knew all too well from home: that mathematicians are the better economists. Key-Words: mathematical economics, linear programming, Soviet economic planning, Cold War, Central Economics and Mathematics Institute, Tjalling C. Koopmans, Leonid V. Kantorovich. Word-Count: 11.000 1 Assistant Professor, Department of economics, Université du Québec à Montréal, Pavillon des Sciences de la gestion, 315, Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montréal (Québec), H2X 3X2, Canada, e-mail: [email protected]. A former version has been presented at the conference “Social and human sciences on both sides of the ‘iron curtain’”, October 17-19, 2013, in Moscow. -
A Beautiful Math : John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature / Tom Siegfried
A BEAUTIFULA BEAUTIFUL MATH MATH JOHN NASH, GAME THEORY, AND THE MODERN QUEST FOR A CODE OF NATURE TOM SIEGFRIED JOSEPH HENRY PRESS Washington, D.C. Joseph Henry Press • 500 Fifth Street, NW • Washington, DC 20001 The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health more widely available to professionals and the public. Joseph Henry was one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in early Ameri- can science. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Siegfried, Tom, 1950- A beautiful math : John Nash, game theory, and the modern quest for a code of nature / Tom Siegfried. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-309-10192-1 (hardback) — ISBN 0-309-65928-0 (pdfs) 1. Game theory. I. Title. QA269.S574 2006 519.3—dc22 2006012394 Copyright 2006 by Tom Siegfried. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Preface Shortly after 9/11, a Russian scientist named Dmitri Gusev pro- posed an explanation for the origin of the name Al Qaeda. He suggested that the terrorist organization took its name from Isaac Asimov’s famous 1950s science fiction novels known as the Foun- dation Trilogy. After all, he reasoned, the Arabic word “qaeda” means something like “base” or “foundation.” And the first novel in Asimov’s trilogy, Foundation, apparently was titled “al-Qaida” in an Arabic translation. -
Nine Takes on Indeterminacy, with Special Emphasis on the Criminal Law
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law 2015 Nine Takes on Indeterminacy, with Special Emphasis on the Criminal Law Leo Katz University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Law and Philosophy Commons, and the Public Law and Legal Theory Commons Repository Citation Katz, Leo, "Nine Takes on Indeterminacy, with Special Emphasis on the Criminal Law" (2015). Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law. 1580. https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1580 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law by an authorized administrator of Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLE NINE TAKES ON INDETERMINACY, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE CRIMINAL LAW LEO KATZ† INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1945 I. TAKE 1: THE COGNITIVE THERAPY PERSPECTIVE ................ 1951 II. TAKE 2: THE MORAL INSTINCT PERSPECTIVE ..................... 1954 III. TAKE 3: THE CORE–PENUMBRA PERSPECTIVE .................... 1959 IV. TAKE 4: THE SOCIAL CHOICE PERSPECTIVE ....................... 1963 V. TAKE 5: THE ANALOGY PERSPECTIVE ................................. 1965 VI. TAKE 6: THE INCOMMENSURABILITY PERSPECTIVE ............ 1968 VII. TAKE 7: THE IRRATIONALITY-OF-DISAGREEMENT PERSPECTIVE ..................................................................... 1969 VIII. TAKE 8: THE SMALL WORLD/LARGE WORLD PERSPECTIVE 1970 IX. TAKE 9: THE RESIDUALIST PERSPECTIVE ........................... 1972 CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 1973 INTRODUCTION The claim that legal disputes have no determinate answer is an old one. The worry is one that assails every first-year law student at some point. -
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Is The Price Right? Reexamining the Relationship Between Age and the Value of Statistical Life Daniel Eric Herz-Roiphe Harvard College 2010 M-RCBG Associate Working Paper Series | No. 5 Winner of the 2010 John Dunlop Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Business and Government The views expressed in the M-RCBG Fellows and Graduate Student Research Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government or of Harvard University. The papers in this series have not undergone formal review and approval; they are presented to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. Copyright belongs to the author(s). Papers may be downloaded for personal use only. Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government Weil Hall | Harvard Kennedy School | www.hks.harvard.edu/mrcbg IS THE PRICE RIGHT? REEXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGE AND THE VALUE OF STATISTICAL LIFE An Essay Presented by Daniel Eric Herz-Roiphe to The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree with honors of Bachelor of Arts Harvard University March 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Pricing Life and Discounting Death……………………………………2 Chapter 1: Age, Cognition, and VSL ………………………………………………17 Chapter 2: Results of an Online Contingent Valuation Survey……………………...61 Chapter 3: Rethinking Regulation…………………………………………………..96 Conclusion: The Value of Price……………………………………………………130 References……………………………………………………………………….137 Appendix………………………………………………………………………...154 -
Nine Lives of Neoliberalism
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Plehwe, Dieter (Ed.); Slobodian, Quinn (Ed.); Mirowski, Philip (Ed.) Book — Published Version Nine Lives of Neoliberalism Provided in Cooperation with: WZB Berlin Social Science Center Suggested Citation: Plehwe, Dieter (Ed.); Slobodian, Quinn (Ed.); Mirowski, Philip (Ed.) (2020) : Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, ISBN 978-1-78873-255-0, Verso, London, New York, NY, https://www.versobooks.com/books/3075-nine-lives-of-neoliberalism This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/215796 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative -
What Is Game Theory Trying to Accomplish?
1 What Is Game Theory Trying to Accomplish? 1 Introduction The language of game theory—coalitions, payo¤s, markets, votes— suggests that it is not a branch of abstract mathematics; that it is moti- vated by and related to the world around us; and that it should be able to tell us something about that world. Most of us have long realized that game theory and the ‘‘real world’’ (it might better be called the complex world) have a relationship that is not entirely comfortable; that it is not clear just what it is that we are trying to do when we build a game- theoretic model and then apply solution concepts to it. This is the subject I would like to explore in this paper. I might add that much the same questions apply to economic theory, at least the kind that those of us working in mathematical economics see most often; and that much of my paper will apply, mutatis mutandis, to economic theory as well. There is a branch of philosophy that deals with theory in the social sciences, so some of the things I have to say are unquestionably old hat. But I am not trying to be particularly original: I am only trying to open this topic, which I think concerns all of us, for discussion, and to suggest a particu- lar point of view. No doubt others have thought about these questions more thoroughly and deeply than I have, and are better versed in the history and philosophy of science in general. I will be grateful to anybody who sets me straight when I err, and who gives me references for the things I get right.