The outstanding feature of the book is that it provides a unified account of three types of decision problem. It covers the basic ideas of decision theory, classical game theory, and evolutionary game theory in one volume.

This book is an introduction to game theory from a mathematical perspective. It is intended to be a ?rst course for undergraduate students of mathematics, but I also hope that it will contain something of interest to advanced students or researchers in biology and economics who often encounter the basics of game theory informally via relevant applications. In view of the intended audience, the examples used in this book are generally abstract problems so that the reader is not forced to learn a great deal of a subject either biology or e- nomics that may be unfamiliar. Where a context is given, these are usually classical problems of the subject area and are, I hope, easy enough to follow. The prerequisites are generally modest. Apart from a familiarity with (or a willingness to learn) the concepts of a proof and some mathematical no- tion, the main requirement is an elementary understanding of probability. A familiarity with basic calculus would be useful for Chapter 6 and someparts of Chapters 1 and 8. The basic ideas of simple ordinary di?erential equations are required in Chapter 9 and, towards the end of that chapter, some familiarity with matrices would be an advantage although the relevant ideas are brie?y described in an appendix.

Provides three books in one: it covers the basic ideas of decision theory, classical game theory; and evolutionary game theory in one volume No background knowledge of economics or biology is required: examples have been carefully selected to be accessible to readers unfamiliar with these subjects Detailed solutions to the numerous exercises are provided at the back of the book, making it ideal for self-study

Autorentext

James Webb is a former lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, UK

Inhalt
Decisions.- Simple Decision Models.- Simple Decision Processes.- Markov Decision Processes.- Interaction.- Static Games.- Finite Dynamic Games.- Games with Continuous Strategy Sets.- Infinite Dynamic Games.- Evolution.- Population Games.- Replicator Dynamic.