IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aal/abbswp/98-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Austrian Economics and Game Theory a Preliminary Methodological Stocktaking

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolai J. Foss

Abstract

This paper discusses, from the perspective of Austrian economics, the merits and drawbacks of game theory in economics. It begins by arguing that Austrians have neglected game theory at their peril, and then argues that game theoretic reasoning may be one way of modelling key Austrian insights, although some aspects of game theory doesn’t square easily with Austrian economics. However, a major stumbling block for an Austrian acceptance of game theory may lie in the traditional Austrian resistance to formal methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolai J. Foss, 1998. "Austrian Economics and Game Theory a Preliminary Methodological Stocktaking," DRUID Working Papers 98-28, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:98-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wp.druid.dk/wp/19980028.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M., 1990. "Game Theory and Economic Modelling," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198283812, Decembrie.
    2. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1991. "Comments on the Interpretation of Game Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 909-924, July.
    3. Robert Aumann & Adam Brandenburger, 2014. "Epistemic Conditions for Nash Equilibrium," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Language of Game Theory Putting Epistemics into the Mathematics of Games, chapter 5, pages 113-136, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Robert Sugden, 2005. "Spontaneous Order," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare, chapter 1, pages 1-9, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Israel M. Kirzner, 1997. "Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 60-85, March.
    6. Reder, Melvin W, 1982. "Chicago Economics: Permanence and Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 1-38, March.
    7. Andrew Schotter, 1992. "Oskar Morgenstern's Contribution to the Development of the Theory of Games," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 95-112, Supplemen.
    8. Witt, Ulrich, 1986. "Evolution and Stability of Cooperation without Enforceable Contracts," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 245-266.
    9. Andrew Colman, 1997. "Salience and focusing in pure coordination games," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 61-81.
    10. Aumann, Robert J., 1974. "Subjectivity and correlation in randomized strategies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 67-96, March.
    11. Farrell, Joseph, 1988. "Communication, coordination and Nash equilibrium," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 209-214.
    12. Radner, Roy, 1996. "Bounded Rationality, Indeterminacy, and the Theory of the Firm," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1360-1373, September.
    13. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1989. "The Electronic Mail Game: Strategic Behavior under "Almost Common Knowledge."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 385-391, June.
    14. Morgenstern, Oskar, 1972. "Thirteen Critical Points in Contemporary Economic Theory: An Interpretation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 1163-1189, December.
    15. Machlup, Fritz, 1978. "Methodology of Economics and Other Social Sciences," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780124645509 edited by Shell, Karl.
    16. Philip Mirowski, 1992. "What Were von Neumann and Morgenstern Trying to Accomplish?," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 113-147, Supplemen.
    17. Nicolai Juul Foss, 1995. "More on “Hayek's Transformation”," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 345-364, Summer.
    18. Crawford, Vincent P & Haller, Hans, 1990. "Learning How to Cooperate: Optimal Play in Repeated Coordination Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 571-595, May.
    19. Vickers, John, 1995. "Concepts of Competition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 1-23, January.
    20. Roger B. Myerson, 1992. "On the Value of Game Theory in Social Science," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(1), pages 62-73, January.
    21. Daniel Klein, 1997. "Convention, Social Order, and the Two Coordinations," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 319-335, December.
    22. Rizvi, S Abu Turab, 1994. "Game Theory to the Rescue?," Contributions to Political Economy, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(0), pages 1-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dieter Ernst, 1999. "Responses to the Crisis Constraints to a Rapid Trade Adjustment in East Asia´s Electronics Industry," DRUID Working Papers 99-2, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    2. Kirsten Foss & Nicolai J. Foss, 1999. "Organizing Economic Experiments The Role of Firms," DRUID Working Papers 99-5, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolai J. Foss, 1999. "Understanding Leadership A Coordination Theory," DRUID Working Papers 99-3, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    2. van Damme, E.E.C., 1995. "Game theory : The next stage," Other publications TiSEM 7779b0f9-bef5-45c7-ae6b-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "Bayesian game theorists and non-Bayesian players," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 1420-1454, November.
    4. Marek Hudik, 0. "Equilibrium as compatibility of plans," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    5. Ellingsen, Tore & Östling, Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2018. "How does communication affect beliefs in one-shot games with complete information?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-181.
    6. Atsushi Kajii & Stephen Morris, 2020. "Refinements and higher-order beliefs: a unified survey," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 7-34, January.
    7. Joseph Greenberg & Sudheer Gupta & Xiao Luo, 2003. "Towering over Babel: Worlds Apart but Acting Together," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 03-A009, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    8. Colman, Andrew M. & Stirk, Jonathan A., 1998. "Stackelberg reasoning in mixed-motive games: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 279-293, April.
    9. Xiao Luo & Ben Wang, 2022. "An epistemic characterization of MACA," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 995-1024, June.
    10. Grant, Simon & Quiggin, John, 1998. "The meeting place problem: Salience and search," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 271-283, January.
    11. Joseph Greenberg & Sudheer Gupta & Xiao Luo, 2009. "Mutually acceptable courses of action," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 91-112, July.
    12. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Bonanno, Giacomo, 1999. "Recent results on belief, knowledge and the epistemic foundations of game theory," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 149-225, June.
    13. Dekel, Eddie & Siniscalchi, Marciano, 2015. "Epistemic Game Theory," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    14. Marek Hudik, 2020. "Equilibrium as compatibility of plans," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 349-368, October.
    15. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2009. "Dynamic psychological games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 1-35, January.
    16. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2019. "Information Design: A Unified Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(1), pages 44-95, March.
    17. Maarten C.W. Janssen, 1997. "Focal Points," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-091/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    18. Klein, Daniel & Orsborn, Aaron, 2009. "Concatenate coordination and mutual coordination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 176-187, October.
    19. Van Damme, Eric, 2002. "Strategic equilibrium," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 41, pages 1521-1596, Elsevier.
    20. van Damme, E.E.C., 2000. "Non-cooperative Games," Other publications TiSEM 51465233-a356-4d20-acc4-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Austrian economics; game theory;

    JEL classification:

    • B21 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Microeconomics
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:98-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Keld Laursen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.druid.dk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.