Topic: Game theory and strategic thinking in the context of economics, politics, and more.
Format: 24 75-minute class sessions; Video, audio, and printed lecture transcripts; PDF versions of assignments, blackboard notes, and more.
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com
From the website: “This course is an introduction to game theory and strategic thinking. Ideas such as dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stability, commitment, credibility, asymmetric information, adverse selection, and signaling are discussed and applied to games played in class and to examples drawn from economics, politics, the movies, and elsewhere.” … HUH?? But not to worry! Your instructor, Ben Polak, Professor of Economics and Management at Yale University, says this course is “reasonably hard, but reasonably fun!”
The course is a recorded version of a full, 24-session class from Yale. The instructor, Professor Ben Polak, is determined to make this class serve two broad purposes:
1. Serve as a valuable, interactive experience for the Yale students who attend it. That is, he does his best to ensure class participants not only talk about game theory, but they actually experience (in the class) all sorts of games first-hand.
2. Serve as a valuable learning experience for those of us outside Yale who interact with the rich variety of media provided.
To accomplish this second purpose, Prof. Polak provides the following media for online students:
* Complete videos of the class sessions... These allow us to see interactions among student “players” and hear their questions, reactions, and ensuing discussions. [Available in high or low bandwidth video or MP3]
* Plenty of PDF files which include transcripts of the lectures and discussions, problem sets and assignments, etc.
* Specific reading assignments for each lesson, based on the optional textbooks. But, as the instructor says, “I’ll not be following these books. They are safety nets, for backup.”
* “Blackboard Notes” which show all the professor’s notes made during class…. These are actual hand-drawn notes! — (See sample from Session 4 PDF below.)
Game Theory — Sample Blackboard Notes:
Just look at the range of content! Here’s a list of all 24 of the 75-minute Class Sessions
1. Introduction: five first lessons
2. Putting yourselves into other people’s shoes
3. Iterative deletion and the median-voter theorem
4. Best responses in soccer and business partnerships
5. Nash equilibrium: bad fashion and bank runs
6. Nash equilibrium: dating and Cournot
7. Nash equilibrium: shopping, standing and voting on a line
8. Nash equilibrium: location, segregation and randomization
9. Mixed strategies in theory and tennis
10. Mixed strategies in baseball, dating and paying your taxes
11. Evolutionary stability: cooperation, mutation, and equilibrium
12. Evolutionary stability: social convention, aggression, and cycles
13. Sequential games: moral hazard, incentives, and hungry lions
14. Backward induction: commitment, spies, and first-mover advantages
15. Backward induction: chess, strategies, and credible threats
16. Backward induction: reputation and duels
17. Backward induction: ultimatums and bargaining
18. Imperfect information: information sets and sub-game perfection
19. Subgame perfect equilibrium: matchmaking and strategic investments
20. Subgame perfect equilibrium: wars of attrition
21. Repeated games: cooperation vs. the end game
22. Repeated games: cheating, punishment, and outsourcing
23. Asymmetric information: silence, signaling and suffering education
24. Asymmetric information: auctions and the winner’s curse
If you’re up to an intellectual challenge and you want to learn game theory and strategic thinking, then this amazingly comprehensive course may be for you!
URL — http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/game-theory/
======== RELATED REVIEWS FROM “The Best Free Training” =================
* Introduction to Capital Markets (NIRI) – http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=216
* Inside the Global Economy – http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=131
* The World is Flat: Tom Friedman at MIT — http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=74
* Fundamentals of Physics from Open Yale – http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=142
* Open Yale Courses from Yale University – http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=62
* Introduction to Political Philosophy from Open Yale – http://www.bestfreetraining.net//?p=61