Agents, Games, and Evolution:
Strategies at Work and Play
Games, or contexts of strategic interaction, pervade and suffuse our lives and the
lives of all organisms. How are we to make sense of and cope with such situations? How
should an agent play? When will and when won’t cooperation arise and be maintained?
Using examples and a careful digestion of the literature, Agents, Games, and
Evolution: Strategies at Work and Play addresses these encompassing themes
throughout, and is organized into four parts:
Part I introduces classical game theory and strategy selection. It compares
ideally rational and the "naturalist" approach used by this book, which focuses
on how actual agents chose their strategies, and the effects of these strategies on model
systems.
Part II explores a number of basic games, using models in which agents have
fixed strategies. This section draws heavily on the substantial literature associated with
the relevant application areas in the social sciences.
Part III reviews core results and applications of agent-based models in which
strategic interaction is present and for which design issues have genuine practical
import. This section draws heavily on the substantial literature associated with the
application area to hand.
Part IV addresses miscellaneous topics in strategic interaction, including
lying in negotiations, reasoning by backward induction, and evolutionary models.
Modeled after the authors’ Agents, Games, and Evolution course at the
University of Pennsylvania, this book keeps mathematics to a minimum, focusing on
computational strategies and useful methods for dealing with a variety of situations.
Table of Contents
Starters
Contexts of Strategic Interaction
Games in the Wild and the Problems of Play
Mixed Motives
Playing Prisoner's Dilemma
Fanning Out: 2x2 Games and Models
Stag Hunt
Pareto versus Nash
Affording Cooperation
Markets and Applications
Competitive Markets
Monopoly Stories
Oligopoly: Cournot Competition
Oligopoly: Bertrand Competition
Supply Curve Bidding
Two-Sided Matching
IDS Games
Organizational Ambidexterity
Bargaining
Topics in Strategic Analysis
Lying and Related Abuses
Evolutionary Models
Backward Induction
Summing Up
Appendices
Game Concepts
Useful Mathematical Results
Further Arguments on the Surprise Exam
Resources on the Web
Bibliography
Index
512 pages, Hardcover