Syllabus

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The students should become familiar with the central concepts of non-cooperative game theory and they should learn how to apply those in microeconomic applications. After this course they should be able to read research articles that use game theory as the method of analysis.

Credits: 5

Schedule: 16.01.2023 - 06.03.2023

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Pauli Murto

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):

Teacher: Pauli Murto (pauli.murto@aalto.fi)

Teaching assistant: Mikael Mäkimattila (mikael.makimattila@aalto.fi)

CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):

Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):

Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English

CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD

Content

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  -Strategic form games: pure and mixed strategies, dominant and dominated strate-gies, rationalizable strategies, Nash equilibrium
  -Extensive form games: sequential rationality, backward induction, sub-game per-fect equilibrium, sequential equilibrium
  -Dynamic games of complete information: bargaining games, repeated games
  -Games of incomplete information: Bayesian Nash equilibrium, perfect Bayesian equilibrium

Assessment Methods and Criteria

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Exam and assignments

• applies in this implementation

  1. Exam (75% of the grade):

  The final exam will be on 6.3. at 10:00 – 12:00.

   

  2. Assignments (25% of the grade): 

  There are 4 problem sets, one for each exercise session of the course. The students are expected to work out solutions to the problems and return to the return box before the corresponding session.

   

   

  
  

Workload

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  -Contact Teaching 24h
  -Exercise sessions 8h
  -Exam 4h
  -Independent work 124h

DETAILS

Study Material

• applies in this implementation

  As the main text for the course one can use:

   

  -       Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green: “Microeconomic Theory”, Oxford University Press (MWG) and/or

  -       Mailath “Modeling Strategic Behavior: A Graduate Approach to Game Theory and Mechanism Design”, World Scientific Publishing, freely available here:

  https://web.sas.upenn.edu/gmailath/books/modeling-strategic-behavior/
  
  

  These sources cover most of the material of the lectures. However, there are many excellent specialized books that can be helpful as supplementary material:

   

  -       Fudenberg and Tirole: “Game Theory”, MIT Press.

  -       Osborne and Rubinstein: “A Course in Game Theory”, MIT Press.

  -       Myerson: “Game Theory. Analysis of Conflict”, Harvard University Press.

  -       Maschler, Solan, and Zamir: “Game Theory”, Cambridge University Press.

   

  I will post lecture notes on the course web-site as the course proceeds. These will give a good idea about the contents of the lectures, but they will not be self-contained: proofs, illustrations, further discussions, etc. will be done in the class. The lecture notes will also point out the relevant parts in the other study materials where one can study the topics further.

  
  

Substitutes for Courses

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Substitutes for Courses

Prerequisites

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Prerequisites

SDG: Sustainable Development Goals

8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Helsinki GSE course. More information on the course in HSGE study guide: https://www.helsinkigse.fi/courses/
  Registration in Sisu.

  Teaching Language : English

  Teaching Period : 2022-2023 Spring III
  2023-2024 Spring III

Description