J.C. Harsanyi – författare

When John Harsanyi came to Stanford University as a candidate for the Ph.D., I asked him why he was bothering, since it was most un­ likely that he had anything to learn from us. He was already a known scho­ lar; in addition to some papers in economics, the first two papers in this vol­ ume had already been published and had dazzled me by their originality and their combination of philosophical insight and technical competence. However, I am very glad I did not discourage him; whether he learned any­ thing worthwhile I don't know, but we all learned much from him on the foundations of the theory of games and specifically on the outcome of bar­ gaining. The central focus of Harsanyi's work has continued to be in the theory of games, but especially on the foundations and conceptual problems. The theory of games, properly understood, is a very broad approach to social interaction based on individually rational behavior, and it connects closely with fundamental methodological and substantive issues in social science and in ethics. An indication of the range of Harsanyi's interest in game the­ ory can be found in the first paper of Part B -though in fact his owncontri­ butions are much broader-and in the second paper the applications to the methodology of social science. The remaining papers in that section show more specifically the richness of game theory in specific applications.

This volume contains twelve of my game-theoretical papers, published in the period of 1956-80. It complements my Essays on Ethics, Social Behavior, and Scientific Explanation, Reidel, 1976, and my Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations, Cambridge University Press, 1977. These twelve papers deal with a wide range of game-theoretical problems. But there is a common intellectual thread going though all of them: they are all parts of an attempt to generalize and combine various game-theoretical solution concepts into a unified solution theory yielding one-point solutions for both cooperative and noncooperative games, and covering even such 'non-classical' games as games with incomplete information. SECTION A The first three papers deal with bargaining models. The first one discusses Nash's two-person bargaining solution and shows its equivalence with Zeuthen's bargaining theory. The second considers the rationality postulates underlying the Nash-Zeuthen theory and defends it against Schelling's objections. The third extends the Shapley value to games without transferable utility and proposes a solution concept that is at the same time a generaliza­ tion of the Shapley value and of the Nash bargaining solution.

This volume contains twelve of my game-theoretical papers, published in the period of 1956-80. It complements my Essays on Ethics, Social Behavior, and Scientific Explanation, Reidel, 1976, and my Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations, Cambridge University Press, 1977. These twelve papers deal with a wide range of game-theoretical problems. But there is a common intellectual thread going though all of them: they are all parts of an attempt to generalize and combine various game-theoretical solution concepts into a unified solution theory yielding one-point solutions for both cooperative and noncooperative games, and covering even such 'non-classical' games as games with incomplete information. SECTION A The first three papers deal with bargaining models. The first one discusses Nash's two-person bargaining solution and shows its equivalence with Zeuthen's bargaining theory. The second considers the rationality postulates underlying the Nash-Zeuthen theory and defends it against Schelling's objections. The third extends the Shapley value to games without transferable utility and proposes a solution concept that is at the same time a generaliza­ tion of the Shapley value and of the Nash bargaining solution.