games economists play

["Abu Rizvi" <srizvi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

With regard to the:

> the subversive implications of game theory.
>

This has been mentioned a number of times without it being made
explicit what exactly is so subversive.  Would it be possible to
state what these implications are?

For example, is it suboptimality in prisoners'-dilemma type games
which is subversive?  If so, this has been known for a long, long
time and for instance was highlighted by Amartya Sen in "Behaviour and
the Concept of Preference" in 1973 well before the "game-theoretic
revolution" of the 80's.  Moreover, Nash, Harsanyi and Selten played
little or no role in this development, so far as I can see.  In other
words, why should the profession feel squeamish about awarding them
the Nobel?

There are other possibilities, of course, including that expressed in
Rajiv's recent mail about the evolutionary variant of game theory
(this is also not widely used in economics).

In any case, I thought it might be good to clearly express what
various members feel is the subversive content of game theory.  (I
realize I may have missed some messages where this was done.)

--Abu.

_______________________________________________________________________
S. Abu Turab Rizvi, Department of Economics, University of Vermont,
479 Main Street, Burlington, VT  05405-0078, USA

tel:  (802) 656-0186    fax:  (802) 656-8405