Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern

Book Overview

John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8401848504
• ISBN13: 9788401848506
• Release Date: December 2021
• Publisher: Interbooks
• Length: 660 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Like reading murky Elizabethan prose for this generation of game theorists

Like reading murky Elizabethan prose for this generation of game theorists. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (TGEB) is the Ur-text of game theory, and Morgenstern and von Neumann bridge the gap and make discoveries between logical positivism, formal logic, choice sets, number theory, and binomial and multinomial outcomes. But in retrospect, this work is rather cumbersome and notation, because so much of it was new, is often baffling to those who have learned game theory from more modern lecturers: a lot of clarity and light has been shed on the field since this was written. As brilliant as the insights of von Neumann, and to a lesser extent Morgenstern, were, they were building in response to the nearly simultaneous discoveries by Nash of a new sub-set of mathematics, and like all new fields the first expression needed editing and focus. For this is this work's flaw: it attempted as a first expression of a new field to be comprehensive. Whereas Nash's discovery of equilibrium was lean and concise, with profound reverberations throughout decision sciences, TGEB is bloated and sometimes misguided: economics is too huge a field, and even then the concept of homo economicus rationalis was crumbling under the discovery that people make suboptimal decisions all the time. For those who are reading this for historical curiosity, I suggest William Poundstone's "Prisoner's Dilemma" in conjunction with TGEB, but frankly modern expressions of game theory in more abbreviated texts such as Harold Kuhn's works are actually better because they've cleaned out the dead ends and tightened up he notation and expression.

revolutionary

This book is a must for high level math or econ. majors. To truly understand all the math you need advanced calculus, but the book is still worth while if you only have a basic knowledge of math. The work von Neumann did was revolutionary, with game theory being a joke before this work. You should read it.

Please, the genius speak!

This book is very important for the quality of argument by two big personalities. The lecture is nice for the richness of particulars about several aspects of the theory. The student can understand the singular properties very cleary. The historical importance of this book is very strong.

Thorough, Maybe Too Thorough

I am in the middle of this book now. I chose it because it was the first in this field. It presents so much information, it can overwhelming. Perhaps I should have chosen a simpler book for my first. Oh well, I will plod along. My limited math skills meas I miss out on a lot of the book, but the stuff in between the math is great and is helping me to better understand the ideas. I'm giving it four stars. It is jam-packed with great research and the reader can learn quite a bit, but the heavy math emphasis makes it difficult for many to consume.

Landmark work but heavy going

I'm not even sure I'm qualified to pass judgement on this book, but what I understand, I give 5 stars without hesitation. The authors discuss almost every class of game (2-person, 3-person, zero-sum, non-zero-sum, etc.) and even a very simplified version of poker. You basically have to be a mathematician to get full value from this book. This book is absolutely full of equations and complex proofs. For a beginner with little math, I'd recommend Game Theory by Morton Davis, or for someone with some university math I'd recommend Games and Decisions by Luce and Raiffa. However, if your math is good, you might as well go straight to this book, which started the whole field of game theory.