PART ONE: Introduction and General Principles
Chapter 1: Basic Ideas and Examples
Surveys within MobLab provide you a great opportunity to get to know your class and their baseline knowledge level (ex. Build Your Own Survey).
Chapter 2: How to Think About Strategic Games
Beauty Contest: a.k.a. the Keynesian Guessing Game. Introducing this game at the beginning will pique curiosity. Introduce the students to some basic intuition, as we will come back to this game more formally and in-depth in Chapter 5.
PART TWO: Fundamental Concepts and Techniques
Chapter 3: Games with Sequential Moves
Ultimatum: Available in either gameplay or strategy method
Centipede
Chapter 4: Simultaneous-Move Games: Discrete Strategies
Stag Hunt
Hide and Seek (Focal Points): Do focal points affect equilibrium play?
Chapter 5: Simultaneous-Move Games: Continuous Strategies, Discussion and Evidence
Cournot
Beauty Contest: a.k.a. the Keynesian Guessing Game: the game can be used in this chapter to demonstrate iterative logic and forecasting.
Coordination Games: Bach or Stravinsky, Stag Hunt; Minimum Effort
Chapter 6: Combining Sequential and Simultaneous Moves
Stackelberg Competition
Chapter 7: Simultaneous-Move Games with Mixed Strategies
The Classics: Rock, Paper, Scissors; Matching Pennies (1 round, 2 players)
MinMax: Asymmetric, mixed-strategy equilibrium
Hide & Seek: Do focal points affect equilibrium play?
Matrix: design your own m x n game
PART THREE: Some Broad Classes of Strategies and Games
Chapter 8: Strategic Moves
Ultimatum: Available in either gameplay or strategy method
Market for Lemons: Leads to discussion of real-world solutions
Centipede
The Classics: Rock, Paper, Scissors; Matching Pennies (1 round, 2 players)
Coordination Games: Bach or Stravinsky, Stag Hunt
Chapter 9: Uncertainty and Information
Bomb-Risk: put risk preferences during uncertainty on display
Monty Hall: introduces the intuition behind Bayes’ Rule
Herding (Information Cascade)
Full Information vs. Asymmetric Information: Principal-Agent, Insurance Market
Useful Surveys to Check Understanding: Ambiguity Aversion; Risk Preferences (Holt Laury); Risk Preferences (Binswanger); Allais Paradox
Chapter 10: The Prisoners’ Dilemma and Repeated Games
Prisoners’ Dilemma: either in matrix form or a gamified push and pull form
Matrix Instructor Specified: allows more flexibility when designing payoff matrices to teach a specific objective
Chapter 11: Collective-Action Games
Individual v. Collective Priorities: Multilateral bargaining; Externalities (Judge Me Not)
Public Goods: Public Good (Punishment & Rewards); Tragedy of the Commons; Commons: Fishery
Chapter 12: Evolutionary Games
Trust
Competition Evolution: Cournot; Stackelberg Competition
PART FOUR: Applications to Specific Strategic Situations
Chapter 13: Brinkmanship: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Prisoners’ Dilemma: either in matrix form or a gamified push and pull form
One-Shot Games: Bach or Stravinsky
Chapter 14: Incentive Design
Publics Goods: Punishments & Rewards
Incentive Compatibility Constraints: Principal-Agent
Chapter 15: Auctions, Bidding Strategy, and Auction Design
Auctions (English & Sealed Bid): First-price private value; Common value; All-Pay
Ascending & Descending Clock Auction
Display Ad Auction
Competitive Market (Continuous Double Auction)
Chapter 16: Strategy and Voting
Two-Candidate Election
Voter Paradox (1 Candidate)
Voter Turnout (2 Candidates)
Chapter 17: Bargaining
Ultimatum: Available in either gameplay or strategy method
Dictator Game
Trust Game
Bargaining: Alternating Offer; Multilateral