An Introduction to Game Theory

Rating:
Summary: Great book! with some drawbacks.
Review: Great book to teach a 1-semester game theory course to undergrads, but it lacks the calculus necessary for people who want to continue in the area or read technical papers with some sort of basic understanding. The exposition is very clear though!

Rating:
Summary: The best introduction book that you will love!
Review: I have quite a few game theory books, including the Fudenberg and Tirole, the Gibbons, the Mayerson and the other Osborne book. This one is absolutely the best introductory book you will find. The writing is extremely clear, with no unnecessary math, but with very rigorous treatment of concepts and theorems. The author makes remarkable effort in explaining the stuff, and succeeds beyond my expection in offering intuitions and ideas behind the concepts and theorems. It is a perfect intro-level book, if what you want is the combination of accessibility, rigor, and comprehensiveness.

Rating:
Summary: Of Zero Real-World Value
Review: I needed some non-specialist background on auctions and bidding for my job in business, and secondarily was interested in game theory applications to evolution and politics. I chose this book over Dixit's based on its lower cost and on Amazon reviews: specifically, and I quote: "intuitions and ideas," "accessibility," "reader friendly with a lot of examples" and, most importantly, "no unnecessary math."

Hence my unpleasant surprise: the first paragraph in the preface states that the only math you need is what is "typically taught in U.S. and Canadian high schools." Following Blanchard & Fischer, I'm inclined to believe Canadian Osborne went to a very special high school there. My upscale suburban US high school did not teach linear transformations, convexity, finite and infinite sequences, and limit points of dynamic processes, let alone Bayes' rule. Or at least if any such was covered, it's been long since forgotten! Osborne's math appendix helps not a bit; his effort would have been better spent verbally describing his "intuitions" in a manner that might actually seem intuitive to those not mathematical economists. BTW, he also says you don't need to know any econ either: maybe Canadian high schools teach demand curves and Pareto optimality in gym or shop.

Basically, the bulk of the book consists of mathematical proofs at the expense of usable real-world applications, and abstract formulae appear far more frequently than concrete numerical examples. Osborne also has an annoying habit of interrupting his exposition of both theory and application with exercises most of whose solutions are unavailable to the public, rather than putting them at chapter ends like most texts. What seem like some of the key results on auctions, imperfect competition and voting are left as unanswered questions. More generally, in all the search for Nash equilibria, there is no discussion of whether that concept actually meets the criterion claimed of a social norm.

Truthfully, I learned far more about the Cournot and Bertrand models by glancing back at my very old intermediate micro text (Nicholson). And the informational content of education (due to Michael Spence) is more accurately described in Joseph Stiglitz's Nobel address than in the Osborne book.

The only part of the book that IMO was presented at a level appropriate to a non-specialist is on evolutionary game theory and the related Axelrod tournaments. Which I found ironic since I know a fair amount of undergrad econ and zero bio. Then again, maybe the problem is Osborne knows too much mathematical econ but little enough bio to relate to relate a normal person.

So, if the reviewer of May 18, 2004 is correct and this book is not "for people who want to continue in the area or read technical papers with some sort of basic understanding," whom is it actually for? I suppose anyone in an undergrad class for which it is the required text, where the TA will methodically go through all the problems and the Prof (unlike Osborne) will hopefully descend from the ivory tower and explain why they took the class in the first place.



Rating:
Summary: the best introduction to game theory
Review: Osborne's book is the most complete introduction
to game theory available. It's formal but also
reader friendly with a lot of examples. It's
considerably better than the usual game
theory textbooks used in economics (Gibbons,
Kreps and others). Simply great!