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Summer School - Game Theory and Competitive Strategy, 2022, University of Warwick, UK

Publish Date: Apr 11, 2022

Deadline: May 31, 2022

Event Dates: from Jul 17, 2022 12:00 to Aug 06, 2022 12:00

Conflict exists not just in most economic scenarios but in almost every human interaction, be it economic, political or social and this course will adopt that broad perspective in developing analyses, results and insights.
This course is designed for students with a background in microeconomic theory and will be taught at the intermediate level. The topic of this course, Game Theory, is an essential tool for analyzing strategic interactions between economic agents. It can help us explain anything from why farmers overgraze a common piece of land to the price at which a buyer and seller agree to trade. This course equips students with the skills to use game theory to model real world scenarios and apply game theoretic methods to solve these models.
This course is aimed at students studying Economics at University but it is also suitable for Mathematics students.
During the course students will be exposed to non-cooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory and cooperative game theory. Throughout the majority of the course, we assume hyper-rational agents acting in their own interest as we give students a firm grounding in the logic and methods of non-cooperative game theory. We apply standard techniques such as domination of strategies, Nash Equilibrium and backwards induction across a wide variety of games. When relaxing this hyper-rationality assumption, students will then see how evolutionary game theory gives very similar predictions and thus offers a second justification of Nash Equilibrium. Although, we go slightly further to argue that some equilibria are more stable than others.
As will be seen, in many games like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, game theory predicts suboptimal outcomes, since each agent acts in their self-interest, which may not be the common interest. One way to escape this is to allow agents to write binding contracts with each other, which enables us to shift the focus from strategies to payoffs. We take a brief venture into cooperative game theory to see how agents will split the gains from forming coalitions.
One common application of game theory is to bargaining. This pertains to any situation whereby two or more agents have an incentive to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, but conflicting interests over the terms of such an agreement. Students will see some of the myriad of situations bargaining theory can be applied to and learn what predictions bargaining theory can help us make about how these situations will be resolved.

The topics to be covered include:

  • What game theory is about and why it is “right”
  • How to translate a real world scenario into a game theoretic model
  • Expected utility theory
  • Simultaneous and sequential move games
  • Nash Equilibrium
  • Domination of strategies
  • Backwards Induction
  • Games of Incomplete Information
  • Mixed strategies
  • Evolutionary game theory
  • Cooperative game theory
  • Models of bargaining
  • Bertrand Model
  • Cournot Model
  • Repeated Games

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

  • Understand the different types of games and their uses in strategic thinking.
  • Analyse different games and use a variety of tools to find equilibria.
  • Understand expected utility theory and the role of probabilities in explaining behaviour.
  • Construct models of bargaining and negotiation and how they can be applied to models of competition.
  • Distinguish between the different strands of game theory.
  • Justify the predictions of non-cooperative game theory an evolutionary perspective.
  • Assess the importance of information in games an dhow this can change behaviours.
  • Understand the way in which game theoretic models can be applied to a variety of real-world scenarios in economics and in other areas.

Course leader
Dr James Massey, Teaching Fellow, Department of Economics, University of Warwick

Target group
This course is open to students who are studying or have previously studied Economics or Mathematics at University level. You should attach your most recent transcript or provide a screenshot of your modules from your student portal as evidence when you apply. Students should also meet our standard entry requirements and must be aged 18 or over by the time the Summer School commences and have a good understanding of the English language.

 

Students should develop an appreciation for how the details of a game such as when players move and why they know can have a large impact on outcomes.

Credits info: 7.5 EC

Fee info
GBP 2070: Tuition fee (includes a 10% early booking discount, social programme and guest lecture series)

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Further Official Information

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Disciplines

Information Technology

Technology

Study Levels

BA

Graduate

MA

Master’s

Undergraduate

Eligible Countries

International

Host Countries

United Kingdom