COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 211.1

This course is dual-listed with the MBA for Executives Program.

COURSE TITLE: Game Theory in Practice

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 units

INSTRUCTOR: Shachar Kariv

MEETING DAY/TIME: EMBA Block Week (specifics TBD)

PREREQUISITE(S): none

REQUIRED READINGS: Hand-outs

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: The requirements for a grade in the class is a final take-home exam. The exam will test your basic knowledge in the course material and the ability to apply this material to new problems. Further details will be given later in the semester.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
The course presents some of the main topics in game theory. Game theory is about what happens when decision makers (spouses, workers, managers, presidents) interact. In the past fifty years, game theory has gradually became a standard language in economics. The power of game theory is its generality and (mathematical) precision, and because game theory is rich and crisp, it is applicable to many business situations.

Nevertheless, the spread of game theory outside of economics has suffered because of the misconception that it requires a lot of fancy math. A typical question is what is game theory good for, or more precisely, is game theory meant to predict what decision makers do, to give them advice, or what?! The answer is that (only) the tools of analytical game theory can be used to predict, postdict (explain), and prescribe, taking into account that even if game theory is not always accurate, descriptive failure is prescriptive opportunity.

As Robert J. Aumann (2005 Nobel Economics Laureate "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis") said "... game theory is a sort of umbrella or 'unified field' theory for the rational side of social science, where 'social' is interpreted broadly, to include human as well as non-human players (computers, animals, plants)." We will show that game theory is not just a normative theory (how people ought to choose), but also as a descriptive theory (how people actually choose) and even as a prescriptive theory (as a practical aid to choice).

Last year’s handouts are (publically) available for downloading from the instructors website. If you want more information about game theory click here.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Shachar Kariv is the Benjamin N. Ward Professor of Economics and Department Chair. He was educated at Tel Aviv University and New York University, where he received my Ph.D. in economics in 2003, the same year he joined the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been the Faculty Director of UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory (aka Xlab), a laboratory for conducting experiment-based investigations of issues of interest to social sciences. He is also a co-founder of Xmobile, a new platform for conducting social science experiments that builds on the ubiquity and functionalities of Smartphones.

Shachar was a visiting member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (2005-6), a visiting professor at the European University Institute (2008), a visiting fellow at Nuffield College of the University of Oxford (2009), a visiting professor at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya (2011-12), and a visiting professor at the Department of Economics at Stanford University (2014). He is also a visiting professor (Professor II) at the Department of Economics at the NHH Norwegian School of Economics where he is affiliated with the Choice Lab.

He is the recipient of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching (2012), the UC Berkeley Division of Social Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award (2008), and the Graduate Economics Association Outstanding Advising Award (2006). Shachar was also awarded NYU College of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award (Golden Dozen) in recognition of excellence in teaching and contributions to undergraduate education (2002) and NYU Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award in the Social Sciences (2001). For his Ph.D. dissertation at NYU, he received the Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences (2003). He was also awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship for Economics (2009-10).