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Barcelona

International Studies - Winter 2 2009
Strategic Behaviour in Business and Economics

45
Language Level: Taught In English
Strategic Behaviour in Business and Economics
Language of Instruction: English
Course taken with: International Students
Autonomous University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)

Course Description

Hours & Credits

45

Hours of Instruction

3

Semester Credit Units

4

Quarter Credit Units

Prerequisites and Language Level

Taught In English
There is no language prerequisite for courses at this language level.

Overview

Number of sessions: 30
Length of each session: 1,5h
Total length of the module: 45 hours
OBJECTIVE
This course in designed as an introduction to individual decision-making. We begin with an experiment including several basic decision problems and games. The results of this experiment will be compared with the solutions offered by decision theory and game theory. When the standard economic theory does not fit the data some alternative approaches will be introduced.
CONTENT
1. Introduction
1.1 Problems we solve everyday
1.2 The experiment (Note: This is not an exam)
2. Individual decision-making
2.1 Basic concepts: Values and preferences
2.2 Choice under uncertainty: Lotteries and risk aversion
2.3 Decision trees and backward induction
3. Basic topics in game theory
3.1 What is a game?
3.3 Types of games
3.4 Solution concepts: Dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium, Subgame perfect equilibrium.
4. Compare the results of the experiment and the predictions of the theory
4.1 What does the theory not reflect?
5. Alternative approaches
5.1 Psychology
5.2 Evolution
5.3 Artificial intelligence
6. Applications of game theory to other fields: sociology, politics, biology etc.
Bibliography:
Gibbons R. (1992) A primer in game theory Pearson Higher Education
Roy Gardner (1995) Games for Business and Economics New York: Wiley
Varian H (1999) Intermediate Microeconomics W. W. Norton & Company