This link has been bookmarked by 271 people . It was first bookmarked on 02 Mar 2006, by someone privately.
-
26 May 14
-
04 Jun 12
-
23 Nov 11
-
28 Sep 11
-
11 Apr 11
-
14 Mar 11
-
14 Feb 11
-
11 Feb 11
-
17 Jan 11
-
-
Marginal Revolution
-
Until the very end, there is always time to learn more areas, and always a very large number of areas one does not know at all.
It has become a cliche, but Samuel Johnson was close to the truth when he wrote:
"A man should read as his fancy takes him, for what he reads as a chore will do him little good."
-
The most sophisticated person is someone who really loves an area and has pursued it, and that's also the best magnet for attracting interested and interesting others. On related topics, here is Modeled Behavior and here is Robin Hanson.
-
6. Did the hard core left disappear from the blogosphere? If so, why? I believe this post is quite wrong but it is thoughtful and interesting and worth the read.
-
-
10 Jan 11
-
04 Nov 10
-
15 Sep 10
Camden LambertThis blog is written by economists, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. The discuss the future in terms of economics. This can be useful because the reader learns to think of everyday events in an economic way.
-
06 Aug 10
-
04 Aug 10
-
16 Jul 10
-
13 Jun 10
-
18 May 10
-
17 May 10
-
13 May 10
-
12 May 10
-
05 May 10
-
26 Apr 10
-
11 Apr 10
-
12 Mar 10
-
02 Mar 10
-
26 Feb 10
-
21 Jan 10
-
12 Jan 10
-
11 Jan 10
-
30 Dec 09
David ChildersOne of the top econ blogs: sometimes esoteric, always entertaining.
-
20 Dec 09
-
16 Dec 09
-
03 Dec 09
-
22 Nov 09
-
05 Nov 09
-
02 Nov 09
-
23 Oct 09
-
15 Oct 09
-
03 Oct 09
-
19 Sep 09
-
04 Sep 09
-
27 Aug 09
-
10 Aug 09
-
06 Aug 09
-
31 Jul 09
-
30 Jul 09
-
28 Jul 09
-
23 Jul 09
-
22 Jul 09
-
16 Jul 09
-
15 Jul 09
-
14 Jul 09
-
13 Jul 09
-
07 Jul 09
-
07 Jun 09
-
03 May 09
-
28 Apr 09
-
23 Apr 09
-
22 Apr 09
-
04 Apr 09
Raistlin MajereJoint economics blog of Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, professors at GMU
-
23 Mar 09
-
18 Mar 09
-
15 Mar 09
-
14 Mar 09
-
01 Mar 09
-
25 Feb 09
-
02 Feb 09
-
23 Jan 09
-
15 Jan 09
-
29 Dec 08
-
23 Dec 08
-
08 Dec 08
-
23 Nov 08
-
13 Nov 08
-
14 Oct 08
-
08 Oct 08
-
07 Oct 08
-
30 Sep 08
-
29 Sep 08
-
20 Sep 08
-
01 Aug 08
-
09 Jul 08
-
14 May 08
-
28 Apr 08
-
23 Apr 08
-
13 Mar 08
-
14 Feb 08
-
01 Feb 08
-
30 Jan 08
-
-
Logic of Life - Chapter 2: Game Theory isn't Always about the Games We Play
Fabio RojasThis review is cross posted on orgtheory.net, the management & social science blog.
It's a pleasure to be back at the Marginal Revolution. Let me start out by agreeing with Tyler and Bryan. Tim Harford is one of the leading popular social science writers and we're lucky to have him.
Today, I'll focus on Chapter Two of Tim's book, "Las Vegas: The Edge of Reason." In this chapter, Harford describes game theory. In a nutshell, game theory studies any situation where (a) you have multiple people striving to achieve a goal and (b) your actions depend on the actions of the other people in the game. By most accounts, game theory is one of the great accomplishments of modern social science. Once you realize that people's actions are both utility maximizing and interdependent, then game theory can help you model just about any form of cooperation or conflict.
Harford discusses the basic concepts of game theory with vivid examples ranging from poker, to nuclear war, to quitting smoking. And, as expected, game theory usually provides a great deal of insight. Harford shows how game theory can also be enormously useful, even life saving. Harford recounts how economist Thomas Schelling realized that some situations might encourage participants to jump the gun and initiate devastating conflict. What Schelling realized is that these dangerous games had low information, such as the US misunderstanding a Soviet action, and starting nuclear war. Schelling advocated increased communication between the US and Soviet leadership, including the creation of the hotline between Moscow and the US, which helped defuse tensions in later Cold War disputes.
I'll finish this post with my one big criticism of game theory, at least the basic version described by Harford and taught in intro courses. In game theory 101, you assume that people develop optimal strategies in response to other rational actors. One huge problem with a lot of these models is that the games are very complicated. It's hard to imagine most people perform the mental acrobatics of game theory actors.
One response is that game theory is empirically well supported, which suggests that some process drives people to the strategies described by game theory. For example, Harford describes how economists and mathematicians used game theory to sort through the insanely complex game of poker and that the optimal game theory strategy was actually fairly similar to what world class poker players do.
So game theory is supported, right? Not so fast. Game theory has two parts (a) a description of optimal strategies, and (b) a prediction that people will actually solve the game and find these strategies. In my view, game theory 101 is well supported, in poker at least, on point (a), but not (b). In other words, world class poker players rarely sit around and do backwards induction, or any other flavor of equilibrium analysis, but they still obtain strong strategies through trial and error.
What I suspect is that world class poker emerged from an evolutionary process. Very smart people can figure out certain strategies, but nobody can figure out the whole game by themselves, lest they become full time mathematicians. The typical world class poker player probably inherits a bunch of rules that were tested by earlier generations, and adds a few new twists. Competition weeds out bad rules. Even Steve Levitt, star economist, Harvard & MIT grad, developed his own idiosyncratic strategy, rather than solve the game himself.*
In the end, game theory is really a first step in understanding complex interactions. The next step is developing an evolutionary theory of games where actors inherit a tool box of strategies from previous generations of players. Already, there is a fairly well developed genre of game theory taking this approach, but I welcome the day when it becomes refined enough so that it can account not just the strategies of leading poker players, but how these strategies emerged from generations of competition.
*According to the news reports, he developed his own "weird style" rather than completely solve the poker game. But it works for him! What would Johnny von Neumann say?
-
There may also be social benefits to daylight-saving time that weren't covered in the research. When the extension of daylight-saving time was proposed by Mr. Markey, he cited studies that noted "less crime, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity" with the extra sunlight in the evening
-
-
13 Dec 07
-
10 Dec 07
-
06 Nov 07
-
05 Nov 07
-
04 Nov 07
-
24 Oct 07
Page Comments
Venham Conhecer a Nova Temporada da http://www.jogando.net/mu/ na versão Season6, com muitas Novidades, Eventos, Itens e Muito mais, para os jogadores do http://www.jogando.net/mu/
Super - 10.000x
Pvp 15.000x
Very Easy - 5.000x
Hard 100 x
Extreme 10x
War 1000x
Novo Sever: Phoenix Ep.3 3.000x (32k stats) Acumulativo
Algumas Novidades:
-> Castle Siege, agora o GM da guild vencedora ganha SET exclusivo.
-> Fique logado e ganhe golds, Free ganha 1 GOLD por minuto e VIP 2 GOLDs.
-> Novo mapa Karutan com novos MOBs, drops exclusivos e muita XP.
-> Ganhe Chaos Castle e receba itens ancients.
-> Novo char Range Fighter
-> Novos PVPs
-> Novo Vip Premium
-> Novos Mapas
-> Novos rankings será implantado
-> Nova skin no forum com novas opções.
-> Novas Asas, Ring e Pendats 5 Socket
-> Novos Kits Fusion V2, Shield Pv3, Kit Mysthical e ItensSupremo Diamond (raro) Apenas 100 será vendidos
-> Novos Sets especial de Time de Futebol com o melhor preço
-> Vem ai, 6° MegaUltraSuperHiper Evento de Castle Siege Premiado com mais de 21.000 Jcash + Troféus e Medalhas.
>> CADASTRE-SE E GANHE 5 DIAS DE VIP <<
ENTRE JÁ NO SITE : www.jogando.net/mu/index.php?s=cadastrar
By: xXxEmOxXx
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.