Theory of games and economic behavior

This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences. This sixtieth anniversary edition includes not only the original text but also an introduction by Harold Kuhn, an afterword by Ariel Rubinstein, and reviews and articles on the book that appeared at the time of its original publication in the New York Times, tthe American Economic Review, and a variety of other publications. Together, these writings provide readers a matchless opportunity to more fully appreciate a work whose influence will yet resound for generations to come.

Cover; CONTENTS; PREFACE; TECHNICAL NOTE; ACKNOWLEDGMENT; CHAPTER I: FORMULATION OF THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM; 1. THE MATHEMATICAL METHOD IN ECONOMICS; 1.1. Introductory remarks; 1.2. Difficulties of the application of the mathematical method; 1.3. Necessary limitations of the objectives; 1.4. Concluding remarks; 2. QUALITATIVE DISCUSSIOIN OF THE PROBLEM OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR; 2.1. The problem of rational behavior; 2.2. "" Robinson Crusoe"" economy and social exchange economy; 2.3. The number of variables and the number of participants; 2.4. The case of many participants: Free competition. - 2.5. The ""Lausanne"" theory3. THE NOTION OF UTILITY; 3.1. Preferences and utilities; 3.2. Principles of measurement: Preliminaries; 3.3. Probability and numerical utilities; 3.4. Principles of measurement: Detailed discussion; 3.5. Conceptual structure of the axiomatic treatment of numerical utilities; 3.6. The axioms and their interpretation; 3.7. General remarks concerning the axioms; 3.8. The role of the concept of marginal utility; 4. STRUCTURE OF THE THEORY: SOLUTIONS AND STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR; 4.1. The simplest concept of a solution for one participant. - 4.2. Extension to all participants4.3. The solution as a set of imputations; 4.4. The intransitive notion of ""superiority"" or ""domination""; 4.5. The precise definition of a solution; 4.6. Interpretation of our definition in terms of ""standards of behavior""; 4.7. Games and social organizations; 4.8. Concluding remarks; CHAPTER II: GENERAL FORMAL DESCRIPTION OF GAMES OF STRATEGY; 5. INTRODUCTION; 5.1. Shift of emphasis from economics to games; 5.2. General principles of classification and of procedure; 6. THE SIMPLIFIED CONCEPT OF A GAME; 6.1. Explanation of the termini technici