Miller - Game Theory At Work.pdf - Teoria gier - Piffony

Game Theory at Work: How to Use Game Theory to

Outthink and Outmaneuver Your Competition

by James Mer

ISBN:0071400206

Ths s an accessbe gude to appyng game theory to every

facet of busness n order to mprove strategy and decson

makng and emerge as a tougher compettor n the busness

word.

Table of Contents

Outmaneuver Your Competton

Acknowedgments

Chapter 1 - Introducton

Chapter 2 - Threats, Promses, and Sequental Games

Chapter 3 - The Dangers of Prce Competton

Chapter 4 - Smutaneous Games

Chapter 5 - Massve Coordnaton Games

Chapter 6 - Nash Equbra

Chapter 7 - PrsonersÓ Demma

Chapter 8 - Adverse Seecton

Chapter 9 - Survvng wth Lmted Informaton

Chapter 10 - Prce Dscrmnaton and Other Prcng Strateges

Chapter 11 - Hodups

Chapter 12 - Spendng Other Peopes Money

Chapter 13 - Managng Empoyees

Chapter 14 - Negotatons

Chapter 15 - Auctons

Chapter 16 - The Stock Market

Chapter 17 - Further Readngs and References

Appendx - Study Questons

Notes

Index

Lst of Fgures

Lst of Tabes

Game Theory at Work Ï How to Use Game Theory to Outthnk and

Game Theory at Work - How to Use Game

Theory to Outthink and Outmaneuver Your

Competition

James D. Miller

McGraw-Hill

New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London

Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi

San Juan Seoul Singapore

Sydney Toronto

McGraw-Hill

A Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies

America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of

this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored

in a data base or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

ISBN 0-07-140020-6

McGraw-Hill books are available at special discounts to use as premiums and sales

promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please write

to the Director of Special Sales, Professional Publishing, McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza,

New York, NY 10121-2298. Or contact your local bookstore.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, James D.

Game theory at work : how to use game theory to outthink and

outmaneuver your competition / by James D. Miller.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-07-140020-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Management games. I. Title: How to use game theory to outthink and

outmaneuver your competition. II. Title.

HD30.26 .M54 2003

658.4'0353-dc21 2002013681

This book is printed on recycled, acid-free paper

containing a minimum of 50% recycled, de-inked paper.

James D. Miller is an assistant professor of economics at Smith College. He has a Ph.D.

in economics from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He

has written on game theory in Greek mythology, computer encryption, perjury law, e-

commerce, investing, genetic testing, Internet piracy and lotteries. His work has

appeared in popular and professional resources including the Orlando Sentinel, The

Weekly Standard, International Review of Law and Economics, Tech Central Station,

Journal of Information, Law and Technology , and the Internet sites for National Review ,

CNBC, and Fox News.

Acknowledgments

I’m extremely grateful to my wife Debbie for her stylistic assistance and proofreading, to

my editor Kelli Christiansen for her patiently shepherding a first-time author, to my

parents and grandfather for their embedding in me a love of learning, and to the students

of Smith College for teaching me how to explain economics.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Overview

'Honour and profit lie not in one sack.'

Proverb [ 1 ]

Your life consists of games, situations in which you compete for a high score. Game

theory studies how smart, ruthless people should act and interact in strategic settings.

This book will teach you to solve games. In some games you will negotiate for a raise; in

others you will strive to ensure that an employee works as hard as possible. Sometimes

you will know everything, while in other games you will have to guess at what others

know that you don't. Occasionally competitors will have to work together to survive, while

in other situations cooperation will be impossible since the winner will take all. Many of

the games will seemingly have nothing to do with business, but will be presented to give

you insights into strategy. Since the games that businesspeople play are both

complicated and diverse, this book will provide you with the intellectual tools necessary

to recognize what kind of game you're playing, and, more important, to maximize your

payoff in any game you're in.

In the world of game theory there exists no mercy or compassion, only self-interest. Most

people care solely about themselves and everyone knows and accepts this. In game

theory land your employer would never give you a raise because it 'would be a nice thing

to do.' You get the raise only if you convince your employer that it serves his interests to

give you more money. Game theory land resembles the hypercompetitive all-against-all

environment that often characterizes business in the capitalist world. But, as this book

will show, even when everyone acts totally ruthlessly and extremely competitively, the

logic of game theory often dictates that selfish people cooperate and even treat each

other with loyalty and respect.

This book is fluff free! Game Theory at Work won't teach you about power-chants,

discuss the importance of balancing work and family, or inspire you to become a more

caring leader. This book will instead help you to outstrategize, or at least keep up with,

competitors inside and outside your company.

Economists have devoted much thought to how you should play games of strategy, and

these ideas, which constitute game theory, influence the thinking of businesspeople,

military strategists, and even biologists. They also infiltrate everyday life, whether you

recognize it or not. Almost all MBA students and undergraduate economics majors will

formally encounter game theory in the classroom. Not understanding game theory puts

you at a tactical disadvantage when playing against those who do.

You will find game theory ideally suited for solitary study because it's interesting . Sure,

accounting is at least as important to business as game theory, but do you really want to

spend your free time memorizing the rules of what constitutes a debit? Perhaps the most

interesting thing that human beings do is compete. Game theory, the study of conflict,

illuminates how rational, self-interested people struggle against each other for

supremacy.

In game theory players often base their moves on what they think other people might do.

But if your move is based on what your opponents might do, and their moves are based

on what they think you are going to do, then your move will in fact be somewhat based

on what you think your opponents think that you will do! Game theory can get

complicated, but then so can business.

Ideally, you would learn game theory by reading a textbook. Actually, this isn't true. Your

time is valuable, and textbooks are designed to be studied over several months. So

ideally you should learn game theory by reading a relatively short, accessible book such

as this. Game Theory at Work is more accessible than a textbook, but perhaps more

challenging to read than the typical mass-market book. To master game theory you must

engage in active learning: you need to struggle with puzzles and (obviously) games. The

Appendix contains study questions to many chapters. Although you could follow the

entire book even if you skip all these questions, struggling with them will make you a

stronger player.

This book will challenge your intellect by showing how strange and seemingly

paradoxical results manifest themselves when humans compete. Among this book's

lessons are the following:

Never hire someone too eager to work for you.

Have less trust in smokers.

Many people in business exhibit honesty not because they are moral but

because they are greedy.

Eliminating choices can increase your payoff.

Burning money can increase your wealth.

Stock prices respond quickly to new information.

Exposing yourself to potential humiliation can increase your negotiating

strength when seeking a raise.

Inmates in mental institutions have a few negotiating advantages over their

somewhat more sane corporate counterparts.

Learning about Odysseus' recruitment into the Trojan War provides insight

into why stores issue coupons.

You might ask, 'Will reading this book help me make money?' A true game-theoretic

answer might be that since you have probably already bought this book, I don't really

care what benefit you would receive from reading it, so why should I bother answering

the question? In fact, you likely only purchased this book after reading the jacket, the

table of contents and maybe the first paragraph of the introduction. Perhaps I should only

bother putting a lot of effort into these very small parts of the book and just ramble on for

the rest of it to fill up space. For the rest of the book I could just ramble on and on by

being very, very, very verbose as I repeat myself over and over again by just rambling on

to fill up the space that I have to fill up for you to think that this book is thick enough to be

worth the book's purchase price. After all, I have more important things to do in my life

than write for the pleasure of people I have never even met. Of course, I like money, and

the more copies of this book that sell, the more money I'll get. If you do like this book,

you might suggest to a friend that she buy a copy. Also, if I choose to write another book,

you will be more likely to buy it if you enjoy this one, so probably for purely selfish

reasons I should make some attempt to provide you with useful information. Furthermore,

as of this writing my publisher, McGraw-Hill, still has the contractual right to reject this

manuscript. Since McGraw-Hill is a long-term player in the publishing game, they would

be harmed by fooling book buyers into purchasing nicely wrapped crap. Alas, this means

that if I manifestly fail to put anything of value in this book my publisher will demand the

return of my advance. Beware, however, if you end up enjoying this book, it's not

because I wrote it for the purpose of making you happy. I wrote it to maximize my own

payoff. I don't care, in any way, about your welfare. It's just that the capitalist system

under which books are produced in the United States creates incentives for me to

seriously attempt to write a book that customers will enjoy and perhaps even benefit from

reading.

[ 1 ] Browning (1989), 384.

Day-traders still need to worry about their stock's long-term prospects.

Miller - Game Theory At Work.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: