MAS348 Game Theory 2020-2021
Lecturer: Dr M Katzman
Blackboard
https://vle.shef.ac.uk/ultra/courses/_98114_1/cl/outline
Please familiarize yourself with the Blackboard page. All the materials for the course are there, and online office hours will be delivered with Blackboard's "Collaborate Ultra".
Lectures
The plan is to have in-person lectures as follows:
Monday 4pm, Lecture Theatre 1
Friday 4pm, Lecture Theatre 1
In the event that lectures move online, these will be available on Blackboard's "Collaborate Ultra"
If you cannot attend in-person lectures or if you would feel more comfortable studying online, you can attend my two weekly feedback sessions (see below).
Feedback sessions (office hours)
Online on Blackboard's "Collaborate Ultra":
Tuesday 10am
Friday 11am
During these online sessions I will answer questions, go over the material of the previous lectures and homework problems.
If for any reason you do not attend lectures, these sessions will help you keep track of the course.
Exam
TBA
Homework
Four homework assignments, partly as online tests, mostly as Crowdmark assignments.
Syllabus
Cooperative games - pure strategies (3 lectures)
Nash equilibria in Economics: monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies (2 lectures)
Cooperative games - mixed strategies (3 lectures)
Sequential games (5 lectures)
Repeated games (4 lectures)
Bayesian games (3 lectures)
Syllabus (PDF, KB)
Lectures' slides and notes
Introduction (PDF, 51KB)
Cooperative games - pure strategies (PDF, 91KB)
Nash equilibria in economics (PDF, 28KB)
Cooperative games - mixed strategies (PDF, 107KB)
Sequential games (PDF, 125KB)
Repeated games (PDF, 79KB)
Bayesian games (PDF, 33KB)
Compact format of the above slides (PDF, 350KB)
Textbooks
The following texts are excellent and each contains all the material in MAS348, (and much more). I encourage you to read the relevant sections in them.
M J Osborne. An introduction to game theory, Oxford University Press (2003). (Library holdings)
K G Binmore. Playing for real: a text on game theory, Oxford University Press (2007). (Library holdings)
The Exam
Format: TBA
The 2013-14 exam (PDF, 92KB) and its solution (PDF, 58KB).
The 2014-15 exam (PDF, 90KB) and its solution (PDF, 54KB).
The 2015-16 exam (PDF, 108KB) and its solution (PDF, 61KB).
The 2016-17 exam (PDF, 74KB) and its solution (PDF, 48KB).
The 2017-18 exam (PDF, 84KB) and its solution (PDF, 63KB).
The 2018-19 exam (PDF, 81KB) and its solution (PDF, 58KB).
A Mock exam used in 2013-14 (PDF, 96KB) and its solution (PDF, 54KB).
Useful links
Tim Roughgarden's Game theory through the computational lens, a very good lecture covering some of the material in this course.
A FT article* on the relevance of the Median Voter Theorem to our current state of affairs.
An article on Nash equilibrium in The Economist.
The game of Chomp! and a Chomp! strategy book (PDF, 111KB)
Some common games referred to in the course: chess, tic-tac-toe (aka noughts and crosses)