Individual Strategy and Social Structure
Neoclassical economics as-sumes that people are highly rational and can reason their way through even the most complex economic problems. In Individual Strategy and Social Structure, Peyton Young argues for a more realistic view in which people have a limited understanding of their environment, are sometimes short-sighted, and occasionally act in perverse ways. He shows how the...
Neoclassical economics as-sumes that people are highly rational and can reason their way through even the most complex economic problems. In Individual Strategy and Social Structure, Peyton Young argues for a more realistic view in which people have a limited understanding of their environment, are sometimes short-sighted, and occasionally act in perverse ways. He shows how the cumulative experiences of many such individuals coalesce over time into customs, norms, and institutions that govern economic and social life. He develops a theory that predicts how such institutions evolve and characterizes their welfare properties.
The ideas are illustrated through a variety of examples, including patterns of residential segregation, rules of the road, claims on property, forms of economic contracts, and norms of equity. The book relies on new results in evolutionary game theory and stochastic dynamical systems theory, many of them originated by the author. It can serve as an introductory text, or be read on its own as a contribution to the study of economic and social institutions.
http://www.econ.jhu.edu/people/young/
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Peyton Young’s research is concerned with learning in games and its application to the diffusion of innovations, the evolution of social norms and institutions, and the design of decentralized systems of communication and control. He is also interested in applications of game theory to finance.
His books in...
http://www.econ.jhu.edu/people/young/
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Peyton Young’s research is concerned with learning in games and its application to the diffusion of innovations, the evolution of social norms and institutions, and the design of decentralized systems of communication and control. He is also interested in applications of game theory to finance.
His books include: Strategic Learning and its Limits (Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures, Oxford University Press, 2004); Social Dynamics (MIT Press, 2001, ed. with Steven N. Durlauf); Fair Representation (2nd ed., The Brookings Institution, 2001, with M.L. Balinski); Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions (Princeton University Press, 1998); Equity: In Theory and Practice (Princeton University Press, 1994); Negotiation Analysis (University of Michigan Press, 1991, ed.); Cost Allocation: Methods, Principles, Applications (North-Holland, 1985, ed.); Fair Allocation (American Mathematical Society, 1985, ed.).
He is Past President of the Game Theory Society, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society.