Taught by Dr. Pei. He used timed tests to replace the normal in-class tests. Since these timed tests are open-book, then we will not encounter any question like prove some results from lecture or write the definition. All questions would then need a clever way to use all theorems and definitions from lectures.
As in the notes, this course has four parts: Combinatorial Games, Strategic Games, Cooperative Games, Mechanism design. Normally all offerings of this course cover Nim as an intro, and Nash. Then different offerings have different emphasis. Offering of David Jao can be found here, which he covered lots of different topic than this F20 offering.
This course introduces many math foundations in each branch. With these, we can explore further on each topic if interested. Also, ECON 212 is the course with the same name. From its schedule, it seems to only cover strategic games with greater detail. Of course, ECON 212 cannot expect their students to be able to take dual or do matching games like CO 456 did…
Below is the reference mentioned during the lecture:
Combinatorial Game
- From MIT SP.268 course notes: Theory of impartial games
- From University of Munster 3U03 notes: Impartial games
A more comprehensive series of books on combinatorial games (not just impartial games):
- Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays (3 volumes) by Berlekamp, Conway, Guy.
Strategic Game
Any introductory game theory book will include the materials on strategic games. Here are a few that are available for free.
- An Introduction to Game Theory by Osbourne. (The first three chapters can be downloaded here.)
- Multiagent Systems by Shoham, Leyton-Brown. (Chapter 3 is an in-depth overview of game theory. This can be downloaded here.)
- Networks, Crowds and Markets by Easley, Kleinberg. (Chapter 6 is a good overview of game theory. There are many applications to modern social networks. The book can be downloaded here.)
Cooperative Game
Balanced Outcomes in Social Exchange Networks
Mechanism Design
Proof of Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem can be found in Section 9.2.4 of Algorithmic Game Theory
