IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v32y2006i1p97-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Game Theory and Poe's Detective Stories and Life

Author

Listed:
  • Regis Deloche

    (Universite de Franche-Comte)

  • Fabienne Oguer

    (Universite de Franche-Comte)

Abstract

Both Poe and Dupin, the detective character created by Poe, think like game theorists. The goal of this paper is to prove this conjecture. First, we show that each one of the three Dupin stories is filled with ratiocination that can be modeled according to game theory. Second, we briefly elaborate on the bargaining game that is lurking beneath the Poe’s whole trilogy. Third, we show that two very important decisions of Poe - as a young man, he left his foster father’s home; as a forty-year-old man, he took and published a temperance oath - are consistent with game-theoretic behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Regis Deloche & Fabienne Oguer, 2006. "Game Theory and Poe's Detective Stories and Life," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 97-110, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:1:p:97-110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume32/V32N1P97_110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roth, Alvin E. & Sotomayor, Marilda, 1992. "Two-sided matching," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 485-541, Elsevier.
    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. Pierre Courtois & Tarik Tazdaït, 2021. "Jacques Lacan and game theory: an early contribution to common knowledge reasoning," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(5), pages 844-869, September.
    2. Daniel Read, 2020. "The five games of Mr Edgar Allan Poe: A study of strategic thought in ‘The Purloined Letter’," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(4), pages 369-401, November.

    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. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 235-271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tesfatsion, Leigh, 2001. "Structure, behavior, and market power in an evolutionary labor market with adaptive search," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 419-457, March.
    3. Bhaskar Dutta & Rajiv Vohra, 2001. "Incomplete Information, Credibility and the Core," Working Papers 2001-02, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    4. Ehlers, Lars & Hafalir, Isa E. & Yenmez, M. Bumin & Yildirim, Muhammed A., 2014. "School choice with controlled choice constraints: Hard bounds versus soft bounds," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 648-683.
    5. Lones Smith & Axel Anderson, 2002. "Assortative Matching, Reputation, and the Beatles Break-Up," Game Theory and Information 0201002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2013. "A theory of the competitive saving motive," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 275-289.
    7. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    8. Fafchamps, Marcel & Quisumbing, Agnes, 2005. "Assets at marriage in rural Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 1-25, June.
    9. Albert Banal-Estañol & Inés Macho-Stadler & David Pérez-Castrillo, 2013. "Endogeneous matching in university-industry collaboration: Theory and empirical evidence from the UK," Economics Working Papers 1379, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Kovalenkov, A. & Holtz Wooders, M., 1997. "Epsilon Cores of Games and Economies With Limited Side Payments," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 392.97, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    11. Leigh S. Tesfatsion, "undated". "An Evolutionary Trade Network Game with Preferential Partner Selection," Computing in Economics and Finance 1996 _057, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Francis Bloch & David Cantala, 2013. "Markovian assignment rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(1), pages 1-25, January.
    13. Matilde P. Machado & Ricardo Mora & Antonio Romero-Medina, 2012. "Can We Infer Hospital Quality From Medical Graduates’ Residency Choices?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1400-1424, December.
    14. Tesfatsion, Leigh, 1998. "Ex Ante Capacity Effects in Evolutionary Labor Markets with Adaptive Search," ISU General Staff Papers 199810010700001046, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    15. , & , J. & ,, 2011. "Von Neumann-Morgenstern farsightedly stable sets in two-sided matching," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(3), September.
    16. Sergei Severinov & Michael Peters, 2004. "Internet Trading Mechanisms And Rational Expectations," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 551, Econometric Society.
    17. Pais, Joana & Pintér, Ágnes, 2008. "School choice and information: An experimental study on matching mechanisms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 303-328, September.
    18. A Bhattacharya & H Newhouse, 2010. "Allocative Efficiency and an Incentive Scheme for Research," Discussion Papers 10/02, Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Eduard Alonso-Paulí & David Pérez-Castrillo, 2012. "Codes of Best Practice in competitive markets for managers," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(1), pages 113-141, January.
    20. Ehlers, Lars & Klaus, Bettina, 2006. "Efficient priority rules," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 372-384, May.

    More about this item

    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:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:1:p:97-110. 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: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

    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.