Game Theory and Economics

Overview

Instructor: Dr. Debarshi Das, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati.

The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to the study of game theory which has found wide applications in economics, political science, sociology, engineering apart from disciplines like mathematics and biology. The course would introduce to the fundamental tools of game theory, a few equilibrium concepts, apart from numerous exercises and applications. Knowledge of game theory would help students to understand and analyse real life situations such as market behaviour or voting in elections, apart from equipping them with analytical concepts which might be useful should they decide to pursue social sciences, engineering, sciences or managerial higher studies.

Syllabus

Mod-01 Lec-01 Definition of Game Theory and Rational Choice.
Mod-01 Lec-02 Interacting Decision Makers.
Mod-02 Lec-03 Strategic Games : Examples.
Mod-02 Lec-04 Matching Pennies, Stag Hunt and Nash Equilibrium.
Mod-02 Lec-05 Examples of Nash Equilibrium.
Mod-02 Lec-06 Altruism and Prisoner's Dilemma.
Mod-02 Lec-07 Variants Stag Hunt Game, Hawk Dove and Coordination Game.
Mod-02 Lec-08 Public Good Provision, Strict Nash Equilibrium.
Mod-02 Lec-09 Best Response Functions.
Mod-02 Lec-10 Strictly and Weekly Dominated Action.
Mod-02 Lec-11 Application of Week Domination: Voting.
Mod-02 Lec-12 Symmetric Games and Symmetric Equilibrium.
Mod-03 Lec-13 Cournot Model of Oligopoly.
Mod-03 Lec-14 Different Aspects of Cornot Model.
Mod-03 Lec-15 Further Aspects of Cournot Model.
Mod-03 Lec-16 Cournot & Bertrand Models.
Mod-03 Lec-17 Different Aspects of Bertrand Model.
Mod-03 Lec-18 Electoral Competition 1.
Mod-03 Lec-19 Different Aspects of Hotelling Model.
Mod-03 Lec-20 Hotelling Model: Concluding Remarks.
Mod-03 Lec-21 War of Attrition.
Mod-03 Lec-24 First Price Auction.
Mod-03 Lec-22 Second Price Sealed Bid.
Mod-03 Lec-25 All Pay Auction, Multi Unit Auction.
Mod-03 Lec-23 Further Aspects of Second Price Auction.
Mod-03 Lec-26 Accident Laws.
Mod-04 Lec-27 Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium: Introduction.
Mod-04 Lec-28 Mixed Strategy, Mixed Strategy Equilibrium.
Mod-04 Lec-29 Mixed Strategy Equilibrium: Concept and Examples.
Mod-04 Lec-30 Characterisation of Mixed Strategy Equilibrium.
Mod-04 Lec-32 Rationalisability and Beliefs.
Mod-04 Lec-31 Dominated Actions and Iterated Elimination.
mod-05 Lec-33 Extensive Games: Introduction.
Mod-05 Lec-34 Strategy and Equilibrium.
Mod-05 Lec-35 Nash Equilibrium and Its Problems.
Mod-05 Lec-36 Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium.
Mod-05 Lec-37 Backward Induction.
Mod-05 Lec-38 Backward Induction: Exercises.
Mod-06 Lec-39 Ultimatum Game.
Mod-06 Lec-40 Stackelberg Duopoly Model.