Free Capitalist Network - Community Archive
Mises Community Archive
An online community for fans of Austrian economics and libertarianism, featuring forums, user blogs, and more.

Game theory

rated by 0 users
Answered (Verified) This post has 1 verified answer | 5 Replies | 1 Follower

Top 100 Contributor
871 Posts
Points 21,030
eliotn posted on Tue, Feb 24 2009 4:26 PM

I am just curious.  Is there any work that looks at Austrian Economics and Game theory together?  Does anyone know how Game theory fits into Austrian Economics, or is it just a fallacy?

Schools are labour camps.

  • | Post Points: 80

Answered (Verified) Verified Answer

Top 500 Contributor
194 Posts
Points 4,500
Verified by eliotn

Game Theory is helpful for the analysis of bargaining and the formation of institutional frameworks like private property.  It's also helpful in understanding cooperation.  

For example, since we usually start economic analysis from the assumption of a free market, an assumption which presupposes certain insitituions, game theory could supplement these assumptions by providing a mathematical theoretical framework for why they exist..  And for those situations where factor prices or other prices cannot be strictly determined it could supplement AE.

But for most of the hard economics which makes up Austrian Economics it is not so applicable.

  • | Post Points: 25

All Replies

Top 50 Contributor
2,491 Posts
Points 43,390

Obviously it is not fallacy. A field of Math with certain important applications.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 75 Contributor
1,005 Posts
Points 19,030

there was an article about this awhile ago.  It stated that game theory wasn't helpful to austrianism because it needs to include some bad assumptions about action and motivations to work.  That is, it is too limited to be of much help.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 500 Contributor
194 Posts
Points 4,500
Verified by eliotn

Game Theory is helpful for the analysis of bargaining and the formation of institutional frameworks like private property.  It's also helpful in understanding cooperation.  

For example, since we usually start economic analysis from the assumption of a free market, an assumption which presupposes certain insitituions, game theory could supplement these assumptions by providing a mathematical theoretical framework for why they exist..  And for those situations where factor prices or other prices cannot be strictly determined it could supplement AE.

But for most of the hard economics which makes up Austrian Economics it is not so applicable.

  • | Post Points: 25
Top 150 Contributor
752 Posts
Points 16,735
Sage replied on Wed, Feb 25 2009 2:04 PM

Austrian Economics and Game Theory: a Stocktaking and an Evaluation

AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 50 Contributor
Male
2,651 Posts
Points 51,325
Moderator

Seeing that the question has been answered, you might want to google before asking. If you type in "game theory" (with the quotes) or "game + theory" (not necessarily with the quotes) and "site:mises.org" (not with quotes), you'll search all the pages of mises.org for the words "game theory" in precise order. Here were my results.

  • | Post Points: 5
Page 1 of 1 (6 items) | RSS