Manfred J. Holler – författare

The highly praised Western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, has been used in many game-theory courses over the years and has also found its way into leading journals of this field. Using the rich material offered by this movie, alongside other elements from popular culture, literature and history, this book furthers this exploration into a fascinating area of economics.

In his series of Schumpeter lectures, Manfred J. Holler uses his analysis of Sergio Leone’s movie as a starting point to argue that combinations of desires, secrets and second-mover advantages trigger conflicts but also allow for conflict resolution. Many people and organizations have a desire for secrecy, and this is often motivated by a desire to create a second-mover advantage, and by undercutting the second-mover advantage of others. This book demonstrates that the interaction of these three ingredients account for a large share of social problems and failures in politics and business but, somewhat paradoxically, can also help to overcome some of the problems that result by applying one or two of them in isolation.

This book has been written for curious readers who want to see the world from a different perspective and who like simple mathematics alongside story telling. Its accessible approach means that it will be of use to students and academics alike, especially all those interested in decision making, game theory, and market entry.

The highly praised Western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, has been used in many game-theory courses over the years and has also found its way into leading journals of this field. Using the rich material offered by this movie, alongside other elements from popular culture, literature and history, this book furthers this exploration into a fascinating area of economics.

In his series of Schumpeter lectures, Manfred J. Holler uses his analysis of Sergio Leone’s movie as a starting point to argue that combinations of desires, secrets and second-mover advantages trigger conflicts but also allow for conflict resolution. Many people and organizations have a desire for secrecy, and this is often motivated by a desire to create a second-mover advantage, and by undercutting the second-mover advantage of others. This book demonstrates that the interaction of these three ingredients account for a large share of social problems and failures in politics and business but, somewhat paradoxically, can also help to overcome some of the problems that result by applying one or two of them in isolation.

This book has been written for curious readers who want to see the world from a different perspective and who like simple mathematics alongside story telling. Its accessible approach means that it will be of use to students and academics alike, especially all those interested in decision making, game theory, and market entry.

This book introduces readers to basic game theory as a tool to deal with strategic decision problems, helping them to understand the complexity of such problems – to extract a solution, if possible – and to manage the complexity by revising the game if appropriate. The authors discuss basic decision situations modeled as Prisoners’ Dilemma, Chicken Game, and Stag Hunt Game, as well as concepts like the Nash equilibrium, Trembling Hand Perfectness, Rationalizable Strategies and the Theory of Moves to introduce game theoretic thinking. Further, the book presents pioneers of strategic thinking, e.g., Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Goethe, and includes cases of conflict and cooperation to illustrate practical applications. Readers learn to apply game theory in business and in daily life – to manage their decision problems and to better understand the decision problems of others.

This book illustrates how strategic thinking and game theory can be applied to study and enjoy theater plays. By offering various case studies on plays such as Antigone, Medea, Hamlet, Schiller’s Wallenstein, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and Elfriede Jelinek’s Rechnitz, the authors analyze the dynamics of player choices, including their misperceptions, deceptions, and various power games. Plays are examined according to their strategic contexts and, if appropriate, analyzed by means of game theory. This book is written for anyone interested in theater and who wants to learn about strategic behavior on stage but also for readers who are looking for an exciting field for applying game theoretical reasoning.

Die vorliegende Einführung gibt einen umfassenden Überblick über den neuesten Stand der Spieltheorie. Die Darstellung legt den Schwerpunkt auf die Vermittlung der grundlegenden Ideen und der intuitiven Konzepte. Das Buch setzt nur solche mathematischen Grundkenntnisse voraus, wie sie von Studenten im Hauptstudium wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Ausbildung erwartet werden. Anhand von zahlreichen Beispielen wird illustriert, wie sich spieltheoretische Konzepte auf ökonomische Fragestellungen anwenden lassen, und es wird gezeigt, wie spieltheoretische Konzepte neue Einsichten für das Verständnis der Grundlagen ökonomischer Theorie liefern können. Die Neuauflage geht auf aktuelle Entwicklungen der Spieltheorie ein.

Was hat Hamlet falsch gemacht? In diesem Buch lernen Sie Instrumente kennen, mit denen Sie dieser Frage systematisch nachgehen können – die Ihnen helfen, Entscheidungssituationen zu durchdenken, die sich durch Konflikte und Koordinationsprobleme auszeichnen. Mit Hilfe spieltheoretischer Konzepte und Ansätze werden Sie Ihre Antwort darauf finden, was Hamlet falsch gemacht hat, warum der Kalte Krieg „kalt" blieb und warum Michelin seinen Eintritt in den US-Markt besser vermieden hätte. 

Die Spieltheorie ist aus der heutigen Ökonomik nicht mehr wegzudenken. Auch in der Politikwissenschaft, Soziologie und Philosophie findet sich inzwischen ein breites Band sehr unterschiedlicher Anwendungen. Diese Einführung in die Spieltheorie liefert die theoretischen Grundlagen und schult beim Leser die spieltheoretische Argumentationsweise. Für die vorliegende 8. Auflage wurden große Teile der Kapitel 1 bis 4 gründlich überarbeitet und ergänzt. Das neue Kapitel 9 bietet unterhaltsame Einblicke in die spannende (Vor-)Geschichte der Spieltheorie. 

Eine gut lesbare Einführung!

The developments over a thirty-year time span in the study of power, especially voting power, are traced in this book, which provides an up-to-date overview of applications of n-person game theory to the study of power in multimember bodies. Other theories that shed light on power distribution (e.g. aggregation theory) are treated as well. The book revisits the themes discussed in the well-known 1982 publication "Power, Voting and Voting Power" (edited by Manfred J. Holler). Thirty years later this essential topic has been taken up again and many of the authors from its predecessor participate here again in discussing the state-of-the-art, demonstrating the achievements of three decades of intensive research, and pointing the way to key issues for future work.