"Non-cooperative Games" in Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 54, No. 2 (September 1951)<!-- ; as cited in Can and should the Nash program be looked at as a part of mechanism theory? (2003) by Walter Trockel -->
1950s
Context: The writer has developed a “dynamical” approach to the study of cooperative games based upon reduction to non-cooperative form. One proceeds by constructing a model of the preplay negotiation so that the steps of negotiation become moves in a larger non-cooperative game [which will have an infinity of pure strategies] describing the total situation. This larger game is then treated in terms of the theory of this paper [extended to infinite games] and if values are obtained they are taken as the values of the cooperative game. Thus the problem of analyzing a cooperative game becomes the problem of obtaining a suitable, and convincing, non-cooperative model for the negotiation.
The writer has, by such a treatment, obtained values for all finite two-person cooperative games, and some special n-person games.
“My interest in game-theoretic problems in a narrower sense was first aroused by John Nash's four brilliant papers, published in the period 1950-53, on cooperative and on noncooperative games, on two-person bargaining games and on mutually optimal threat strategies in such games, and on what we now call Nash equilibria.”
"John C. Harsanyi - Biographical," 1994
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John Harsanyi 12
hungarian economist 1920–2000Related quotes
Source: 1960s, "The Use and Misuse of Game Theory," 1962, p. 108
Interview https://youtube.com/watch?v=CNPW0WHIAvo?t=872 by Penny Daniels (1989)
"Non-cooperative Games" in Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 54, No. 2 (September 1951)<!-- ; as cited in Can and should the Nash program be looked at as a part of mechanism theory? (2003) by Walter Trockel -->
1950s
Context: We give two independent derivations of our solution of the two-person cooperative game. In the first, the cooperative game is reduced to a non-cooperative game. To do this, one makes the players’ steps of negotiation in the cooperative game become moves in the noncooperative model. Of course, one cannot represent all possible bargaining devices as moves in the non-cooperative game. The negotiation process must be formalized and restricted, but in such a way that each participant is still able to utilize all the essential strengths of his position. The second approach is by the axiomatic method. One states as axioms several properties that it would seem natural for the solution to have and then one discovers that the axioms actually determine the solution uniquely. The two approaches to the problem, via the negotiation model or via the axioms, are complementary; each helps to justify and clarify the other.
Source: 1960s, "The Use and Misuse of Game Theory," 1962, p. 110
Source: 1940s - 1950s, Introduction to Operations Research (1957), p. 519: Partly cited in: E. Roy Weintraub (1992) Toward a history of game theory. p. 235