When All is Said and Done, How Should You Play and What Should You Expect ?

Robert Aumann and Jacques Dreze

No 2005021, Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) from Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques

Abstract: Modern game theory was born in 1928, when John von Neumann published his Minimax Theorem. This theorem ascribes to all two-person zero-sum games a value - what rational players may expect - and optimal strategies - how they should play to achieve that expectation. Seventy-seven years later, strategic game theory has not gotten beyond that initial point, insofar as the basic questions of value and optimal strategies are concerned. Equilibrium theories do not tell players how to play and what to expect; even when there is a unique Nash equilibrium, it is not at all clear that the players “should” play this equilibrium, nor that they should expect its payoff. Here, we return to square one : abandon all ideas of equilibrium and simply ask, how should rational players play, and what should they expect. We provide answers to both questions, for all n-persons games in strategic form.

Pages: 32
Date: 2005-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2005-21.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: When all is said and done, how should you play and what should you expect ? (2005)
Working Paper: When All is Said and Done, How Should You Play and What Should You Expect? (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvec:2005021

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) from Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques Place Montesquieu 3, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Virginie LEBLANC ().