Insegnamento a.a. 2024-2025

The course covers the following topics:

• Game theory basic tools and notions (static games, dynamic games, repeated games, games of incomplete information)
• Game theory applications in electoral competition, voting, legislative bargaining, public good provisions of voluntary nature, negotiations, government coalition formation processes, repeated interaction and stability.

• Analyze non-cooperative interaction between politicians in various contexts.
• Analyze the formation of collective decisions by majority rule or other criteria.
• Evaluate pros and cons of different electoral systems.
• Understand the causes of instability of government coalitions; understand the difficulty in obtaining efficient public good provision; internal conflicts of interests within organizations and between organizations.
• Understand the role of repeated interactions or stable environments.

• Anticipate the consequences of changes in voters’ preferences on party platforms in different institutional systems.
• Evaluate the stability of a party system and entry costs or incentives for new parties in different electoral systems.
• Evaluate the prospects for increased or decreased corruption and changes in distribution as a consequence of certain reforms in how decision making is conducted in political institutions.
• Analyze logically the strategic problem for politicians involved in negotiations.

• Lectures
• Practical Exercises
• Individual works / Assignments
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

On top of lectures, teaching methods include:

-Problem sets to be solved individually or in small groups (maximum three students). Problem sets will be assigned bi-weekly and will provide extensive coverage of the syllabus. Two of the problem sets will be graded. The format of the partial and the general exam is consistent with the problem sets, but we will provide extra exercise for preparation.

-TA sessions will cover the solution to the problem sets, answering all the questions of the students about the exercise and providing extra examples. 

30% of the grade is problem sets, the rest is midterm (30%) and a final exam (40%). Attendance is highly recommended. 

The course aims to give the students the necessary tools to analyze rational and strategic decision making within organizations,  hence the use of game theory is necessary and the acquired knowledge of the game theory tools  is a key part of what needs to be tested for a proper evaluation of the learning of the students.

As in previous years, there will be a midterm exam of one hour and a half with three or four questions of the problem-solving type and a similar second partial. There will also be  problem sets, four in total in the semester, two of which will be randomly graded but all have to be turned in.

• S. TADELIS, Game Theory: an Introduction, Princeton University Press, 2013.
• M.J. OSBORNE, An Introduction to Game Theory, Oxford University Press, 2009.