[lbo-talk] Game Theory question

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue Sep 27 17:58:31 PDT 2011


On Tue, 27 Sep 2011, Ferenc Molnar wrote:


> Has Game Theory been applied to economics in a meaningful and useful
> way?

FWIW, Yanis Varoufakis, a left economist who's basically the best commenter around on the euro mess, wrote a textbook on game theory:

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Introduction-Shaun-Hargreaves-Heap/dp/0415250951/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317170122&sr=1-4#_

I haven't read this one, but I'm looking forward to doing so, because I'm halfway through his textbook on political economy, and he's an absurdly lively writer. His are the only textbooks where I find myself saying "Could you put that in a less colorful and amusing manner? You're offending my sense of propriety."

Also FWIW, he recently applied game theory to explain why Europe's political leadership could be rationally walking off a cliff:

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2011/08/12/on-europes-rational-idiocy-four-illustrations

Michael



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