Advanced Game Theory

Course Instructor

Dr Heese, Carl

Course Description

Game Theory is the standard tool to analyze the behavior of agents in strategic situation and is widely used in many fields including economics, finance, biology, political science, etc. The course is an intermediate course in game theory. It builds upon basic knowledge of game theory as in the course Games and Decisions (ECON2214), although not all material of ECON2214 is a pre-requisite. To this end, it is highly advantageous to be familiar with ideas such as Nash equilibrium, mixed strategies, dominated strategies.

Game theory is a way of thinking about strategic situations whether they occur in economics, in politics, in relationships, in evolution, in sports, in war, in law, or in life.

The first part of the course will delve deeper into the analysis of dynamic (also known as sequential) games, and cover topics such as hold-up problems, Stackelberg competition, reputation, bargaining, wars of attrition, and repeated games.

The second part of the course will present further applications of game theory that have been particularly influential in the history of economic theory, such as median voter theory, matching, mechanism design, and behavioral/psychological game theory. The topics covered in the second part may be adjusted to the students’ prior knowledge.

Course Learning Outcomes

CLO1: Demonstrate ability to apply game theory. Formulate strategic problems as games and being able to solve and communicate them.

CLO2: Be familiar with an array of “standard” strategic problems that the game theoretic literature concerns with (e.g. hold-up, reputation building, etc.).

CLO3: Understand an important subset of landmark contributions of game theory.

CLO4: Be familiar with concepts, methods, and terminology of game theory, as a basis for further studies.

Course Prerequisite(s)

ECON1210 Introductory Microeconomics; and

MATH1009 Basic Mathematics for Business and Economics or MATH1011 University Mathematics I or MATH1013 University Mathematics II

Offering Semester in 2023-2024

Second Semester

Major/Minor (Course Category)

Major in Economics (Disciplinary Elective)

Minor in Economics (Disciplinary Elective)