Game Theory Video Lectures by Prof. Ben Polak of Yale University, Online Course

Lecture 1: Introduction

Embed

You must be logged in to add to favorites. Log In Close

Download: | Mov | Audio

Lecture Details :

We introduce Game Theory by playing a game. We organize the game into players, their strategies, and their goals or payoffs; and we learn that we should decide what our goals are before we make choices. With some plausible payoffs, our game is a prisoners' dilemma. We learn that we should never choose a dominated strategy; but that rational play by rational players can lead to bad outcomes. We discuss some prisoners' dilemmas in the real world and some possible real-world remedies. With other plausible payoffs, our game is a coordination problem and has very different outcomes: so different payoffs matter. We often need to think, not only about our own payoffs, but also others' payoffs. We should put ourselves in others' shoes and try to predict what they will do. This is the essence of strategic thinking.

Course Description :

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.

Other Resources :

Citation |

Licensed under a Creative Commons License by Yale University

Other Economics Courses

Comments

Tom says :

A one of a kind lecturer Ben Polak is. His lectures always attract my attention, I'm halfway through the game theory series and it's really easy to follow, the ability to explain a complex subject like GT a person without any foundations in the subject is astonishing.

Thomas Frank says :

I went through this course with ease. I was slightly off beat with some of the math as my current level of math was not up to par slightly with this but, all in all I have a very good understanding of game theory after taking these classes I will most likely go back through to do the math now that I have established a concept of the Idea of game theory and I am very confident I can now do that with no problems. Thanks for the lessons Mr. Polak

Game Theory