Could white flight occur even if both blacks and whites prefer to have a racially integrated neighborhood? Suppose that a black family is willing to pay higher rent than a white fam- ily to live in what is currently an all-white neighborhood. A willingness to pay higher rent could reflect fewer options for blacks when […]
what happens in the opera? So, what happens in the opera? Tosca stabs Scarpia and Scarpia uses real bullets, so that both Cavaradossi and Scarpia die. When she learns that Cavaradossi is dead, Tosca jumps to her death from the castle’s ramparts. In spite of the carnage, love wins out over lechery. Or, if this
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Can we say what these two operatic characters will do if all we assume is that they are rational? Can we say what these two operatic characters will do if all we assume is that they are rational? Well, con- sider Tosca. If Scarpia chooses real, then Tosca’s payoff from choosing stab is 2 and
Is it reasonable to assume that people act only in their self-interest? Does this assumption mean that people are selfish? Although rationality does mean pursuing your own interests, it places few restrictions on what those interests might be. It can encompass Ebenezer Scrooge either before Christmas Eve— when all he cares about is money—or after
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Will there be a kidnapping? If so, will ransom be paid? Will Orlando sur- vive? Solving this game means answering these questions by se lecting among the eight possible pairs of strategies. We need to weed out unreasonable and implausible strategy profiles and, ideally, identify a unique compelling one. The fewer solutions there are, the
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How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? —SHERLOCK HOLMES IN A STUDY IN SCARLET, BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 3.1 Introduction IN CHAPTER 2, WE LEARNED how to construct a game, in both the extensive and strategic forms. But having built
Does the game have to be factually accurate? If our objective in formulating and then solving a game is to understand be- havior, then what matters is not what is factually or objectively true, but rather what is perceived by the players. Their behavior will be driven by their pref- erences and what they believe,
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Can a player change the game? Consider the kidnapping situation in the movie Ransom. Mel Gibson plays the character Tom Mullen, whose son, Sean, is kidnapped by a corrupt police officer named Jimmy Shaker. Initially, the situation operates like a standard kidnapping. Shaker demands a 2 million dollar ransom. While going to make the ransom
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Of course, here we are talking about an abstraction, for is anything ever truly common knowledge? Even if we’re sitting beside each other watching tel- evision, and a weather bulletin flashes along the bottom of the screen, am I sure that you saw it? Probably. But can I be sure that you saw me watching
SITUATION: HAGGLING AT AN AUTO DEALERSHIP, II This game is more complicated than the ones we have considered thus far. Consider the version in Figure 2.5. Marcus has four information sets: (1) the ini- tial node, (2) the node associated with his having offered pM and Donna’s having rejected it and made a counteroffer of
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