Introducing Nash Equilibria via an Online Casual Game That People Actually Play. Issue 6 (1st June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Aldous, David; Han, Weijian
• Is Part Of: American Mathematical Monthly. Volume 124:Issue 6(2017)
• Page Start: 506
• Page End: 517
• Publication Date: 2017-06-01
• Subjects: Mathematics -- Periodicals; 510.5
• DOI: 10.4169/amer.math.monthly.124.6.506
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-9890

Abstract

Abstract: This is an extended write-up of a lecture introducing the concept of Nash equilibrium in the context of an auction-type game that one can observe being played by "ordinary people" in real time. In a simplified model, we give an explicit formula for the Nash equilibrium. The actual game is more complicated and more interesting; players place a bid on one item (among several) during a time window; they can see the numbers but not the values of previous bids on each item. A complete theoretical analysis of the Nash equilibrium now seems a challenging research problem. We give an informal analysis and compare with data from the actual game.