Course Syllabus

Lectures: 150 GSPP. Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-11:00am.

Instructor: Peter Bartlett.

Office Hours: Wed 1-2 in 399 Evans Hall; Thu 11-12 in 723 Sutardja-Dai Hall.

GSI: Hye Soo Choi.

Office Hours: Mon 5-6, Tue 3-4 in 444 Evans.

Discussion sections: Mondays, 3-4pm and 4-5pm; 332 Evans.

Game theory models conflict and cooperation between rational decision-making agents. It has applications in a wide variety of
areas, including statistical decision theory, artificial intelligence (online learning, multi-agent systems), economics and business (auctions, pricing, bargaining), biology (evolution, signaling behavior, fighting behavior), political science (stability of government, military strategy), and philosophy (ethics, morality and social norms).

We will cover most of the following topics. (Chapter numbers are from Karlin and Peres.)

I. Analyzing games:

1. Combinatorial games
2, 3. Zero-sum games
4. General-sum games, Nash equilibria
7. Correlated equilibria
8. Price of anarchy

II. Designing games:

12. Cooperative games
13. Voting
14. Auctions
15. Elicitation
16. Scoring rules
18. Adaptive decision making

Prerequisites: Undergraduate linear algebra (Math 54 or Math 110), real analysis and calculus (Math 16A,B or Math 104) and probability (Stat 134).

Textbook:
Game Theory, Alive. Anna R. Karlin and Yuval Peres. (Sep 25, 2016 version)

Other resources:
Game Theory (Links to an external site.). Thomas S. Ferguson.

Essentials of Game Theory. Kevin Leyton-Brown and Yoav Shoham.

gametheory.net (Links to an external site.)

Grading:

20% Homeworks

20% Midterm Exam 1 (October 4, in the lecture slot: 9:30-11:00am, 150 GSPP)

20% Midterm Exam 2 (November 10, in the lecture slot: 9:30-11:00am, 150 GSPP)

40% Final Exam (Exam group 7; Tuesday December 13, 3-6pm)

There will be approximately ten homework assignments. The homework grade will be that of the best n-1 of n homeworks. You have a total of 5 slip days for the entire course. Slip days are counted by rounding up (if you miss the deadline by one minute, that counts as 1 slip day). Be cautious with your slip days!

Academic Dishonesty: You are encouraged to discuss homework problems with other students, but you must write up the solutions completely on your own. Do not read or copy another student's solutions. Copying, in whole or in part - from other students in the class or from any other source - without acknowledgment constitutes cheating. Any student found to be cheating risks automatically failing the class and being referred to the Office of Student Conduct.

Communication: Please use Piazza: post a public question or note. For questions related to you only, please create a private post on Piazza.