Political Game Theory - Princeton University

Political Game Theory

Nolan McCarty Adam Meirowitz

To Liz, Janis, Lachlan, and Delaney.

Contents

Acknowledgements

vii

Chapter 1. Introduction

1

1. Organization of the Book

2

Chapter 2. The Theory of Choice

5

1. Finite Sets of Actions and Outcomes

6

2. Continuous Outcome Spaces*

10

3. Utility Theory

17

4. Utility representations on Continuous Outcome Spaces* 18

5. Spatial Preferences

19

6. Exercises

21

Chapter 3. Choice Under Uncertainty

23

1. The Finite Case

23

2. Risk Preferences

32

3. Learning

37

4. Critiques of Expected Utility Theory

41

5. Time Preferences

46

6. Exercises

50

Chapter 4. Social Choice Theory

53

1. The Open Search

53

2. Preference Aggregation Rules

55

3. Collective Choice

61

4. Manipulation of Choice Functions

66

5. Exercises

69

Chapter 5. Games in the Normal Form

71

1. The Normal Form

73

2. Solutions to Normal Form Games

76

3. Application: The Hotelling Model of Political Competition 83

4. Existence of Nash Equilibria

86

5. Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria in Non-Finite Games*

93

6. Application: Interest Group Contributions

95

7. Application: International Externalities

96

iii

iv

CONTENTS

8. Computing Equilibria with Constrained Optimization*

97

9. Proving the Existence of Nash Equilibria**

98

10. Strategic Complementarity

102

11. Supermodularity and Monotone Comparative Statics* 103

12. Refining Nash Equilibria

108

13. Application: Private Provision of Public Goods

109

14. Exercises

113

Chapter 6. Bayesian Games in the Normal Form

115

1. Formal Definitions

117

2. Application: Trade restrictions

119

3. Application: Jury Voting

121

4. Application: Jury Voting with a Continuum of Signals* 123

5. Application: Public Goods and Incomplete Information 126

6. Application: Electoral Competition under Uncertainty 127

7. Application: Campaigns, Contests and Auctions*

131

8. Existence of Bayesian Nash equilibria*

133

9. Exercises

134

Chapter 7. Extensive Form Games

135

1. Backward Induction

138

2. Dynamic Games of Complete but Imperfect Information 140

3. Subgame Perfection and Perfect Equilibria

144

4. Applications

145

5. Exercises

158

Chapter 8. Dynamic Games of Incomplete Information

161

1. Perfect Bayesian Equilibria

163

2. Application: Entry Deterrence in Elections

172

3. Application: Information and Legislative Organization 178

4. Application: Informational Lobbying

183

5. Refinements of Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium*

186

6. Exercises

195

Chapter 9. Repeated Games

199

1. The Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

200

2. The Grim Trigger Equilibrium

202

3. Tit-for-Tat Strategies

203

4. Intermediate Punishment Strategies

204

5. The Folk Theorem*

206

6. Application: Interethnic Cooperation

208

7. Application: Trade Wars

213

8. Exercises

215

CONTENTS

v

Chapter 10. Bargaining Theory

217

1. The Nash Bargaining Solution

217

2. Non-cooperative Bargaining

222

3. Majority Rule Bargaining Under Closed Rule

226

4. Bargaining with Incomplete Information

234

5. Application: Veto Bargaining

235

6. Application: Crisis Bargaining

244

7. Exercises

254

Chapter 11. Mechanism Design and Agency Theory

257

1. The Mechanism Design Problem

260

2. Applications

263

3. Incentive Compatibility and Individual Rationality

274

4. Constrained Mechanism Design

276

5. Mechanism Design and Signaling Games

291

6. Exercises

295

Chapter 12. Mathematical Appendix

299

1. Sets and Functions

301

2. The Real Number System

304

3. Points and sets

306

4. Continuity of Functions

308

5. Correspondences*

310

6. Calculus

311

7. Probability Theory

324

Bibliography

335

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download