Robert Aumann
German/American mathematician, Professor at the Department of Economics and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics.
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The strong equilibrium point f just described is one of "unrelenting ferocity" against offenders. It exhibits a zeal for meting out justice that is entirely oblivious to the sometimes dire consequences to oneself or to the other faitheful——i.e., those who have not deviated.
In many real-world situations, cooperation may be easier to sustain in a long-term relationship than in a single encounter. Analyses of short-run games are, thus, often too restrictive. Robert Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations.
War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.
"Interactive Decision Theory" would perhaps be a more descriptive name for the discipline usually called Game Theory.
Repetition acts as an enforcement mechanism: It makes cooperation achievable when it is not achievable in the one-shot game, even when one replaces strategic equilibrium as the criterion for achievability by the more stringent requirement of perfect equilibrium.
I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general.
The players in a game are said to be in strategic equilibrium (or simply equilibrium) when their play is mutually optimal: when the actions and plans of each player are rational in the given strategic environment – i.e., when each knows the actions and plans of the others.
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