Game theory
Undergraduate · Economics
Syllabus focus
Topics typically covered
Standard syllabus
Static games
- Players, strategies, and payoffs
- Dominant strategies and iterated deletion
- Nash equilibrium in pure strategies
- Mixed-strategy equilibrium (intro computations)
- Coordination, chicken, and prisoners’ dilemma
- Oligopoly applications (Cournot/Bertrand as games)
Dynamic and incomplete information
- Extensive-form games and game trees
- Backward induction and subgame perfection
- Credible vs non-credible threats
- Repeated games and folk-theorem intuition (intro)
- Bayesian games and incomplete information (intro)
- Signaling and screening survey (Spence/Akerlof hooks)
Mechanism and cooperative ideas
- Auctions: English, Dutch, first/second price (intro)
- Matching markets survey
- Bargaining models (Nash/Rubinstein survey)
- Evolutionary games awareness (optional)
- Cooperative games and core (survey, if taught)
- Experimental game theory findings (intro)
STEM / applied
Problem practice
- Finding all NE in 2×2 and larger matrices
- Computing mixed equilibria with indifference
- Drawing and solving simple game trees
- Translating economic stories into games
- Checking SPE with credible deviation tests
- Using software/solvers optionally for larger games
Applications
- Industrial organization case mappings
- Political economy / voting games survey
- Contract and principal–agent sketches
- Classroom experiments and reflection
- Communicate strategy insights without jargon overload
- Capstone: model a real strategic situation formally
Notes
Math level ranges from discrete matrices to light calculus/probability. Tutoring follows the course’s proof vs application balance.