Books in the World Scientific Series In Economic Theory series

This volume contains eight papers written by Adam Brandenburger and his co-authors over a period of 25 years. These papers are part of a program to reconstruct game theory in order to make what players believe about a game a central feature of the theory. The program now called epistemic game theory extends the classical definition of a game model to include not only the game matrix or game tree, but also what each player believes about how the game will be played, and even higher-order beliefs. With this richer mathematical framework, it becomes possible to determine what different configurations of beliefs among the players imply for how a game is played. Epistemic game theory includes traditional equilibrium-based theory as a special case, but allows for a wide range of non-equilibrium behavior.

Presents an axiomatic approach to the problems of prediction, classification, and statistical learning.

This book brings together the authors'' joint papers from over a period of more than twenty years. The collection includes seven papers, each of which presents a novel and rigorous model in Economic Theory.All of the models are within the domain of implementation and mechanism design theories. These theories attempt to explain how incentive schemes and organizations can be designed with the goal of inducing agents to behave according to the designer''s (principal''s) objectives. Most of the literature assumes that agents are fully rational. In contrast, the authors inject into each model an element which conflicts with the standard notion of full rationality, demonstrating how such elements can dramatically change the mechanism design problem.Although all of the models presented in this volume touch on mechanism design issues, it is the formal modeling of bounded rationality that the authors are most interested in. A model of bounded rationality signifies a model that contains a procedural element of reasoning that is not consistent with full rationality. Rather than looking for a canonical model of bounded rationality, the articles introduce a variety of modeling devices that will capture procedural elements not previously considered, and which alter the analysis of the model.The book is a journey into the modeling of bounded rationality. It is a collection of modeling ideas rather than a general alternative theory of implementation.