David Levine's Economic and Game Theory Page

Selten's Game

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." John Maynard Keynes

Unlimited perpetual
permission to link
to any page on this
website is granted. All
non-password-protected
original material
except software
and classroom material
is released under a
Creative Commons
Attribution License meaning you use it
as you like provided
you give me credit.
Software is generally released to
the public domain.
Classroom material is
released under a more
restrictive license
that requires you share
alike.

This site uses the tools of modern economics and game theory to explore how the interaction of intelligent goal-seeking individuals determines social outcomes. Find out more about game theory.

If you wish to link to these pages, please use www.dklevine.com and not levine.sscnet.ucla.edu. Thanks, David.

Risk and Uncertainty:
[Posted at 06/17/2010 06:12 AM by David K. Levine ]

The Economics Book Festival in Trento:
[Posted at 06/08/2010 06:13 AM by David K. Levine ]

Is Economics a Science: For a guy who thinks that methodological disputes are boring and that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I seem to be getting in to a lot of them lately. First we had to listen to Paul Krugman spouting about how bad economics was when he was a graduate student. You can find a brief effort to bring him up to date on developments in the last three decades here. This led to a debate with philosopher of science Alex Rosenberg on bloggingheads tv. It's mostly an elaboration on my "Is Behavioral Economics Doomed" - although I'd have thought that the fact that the Keynesian theory that Paul likes was extensively examined for two decades and ultimately rejected because it was falsified would be evidence that economics is a science. I guess it isn't for Paul: for him Keynesian is an article of faith despite the fact it has been falsified. [Posted at 10/05/2009 11:44 AM by David K. Levine ]

Rationality and Max Weber:

I recently presented a lecture "Is Behavioral Economics Doomed" at the European University Institute in Florence. It was part of a series of lectures in honor of Max Weber. Since a key issue in behavioral economics is the role of psychological phenomenon such as emotion in decision making, I was curious as to what Max Weber thought of this - Weber being a pioneer of what is now called rational choice theory. Kenneth Allan provides a nice summary of Max Weber's thinking on the topic.

Value-rational behavior is distinguished from affective action because Weber sees some semblance of self-aware decision-making processes in value-rationality. Values are emotional, but when we consciously decided to act because of the logic of our values, it is rational behavior. Emotion, on the other hand,is irrational and proceeds simply from the feelings that an actor may have in a given situation. [Chapter 5: Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory, Chapter 5, Pine Forges Press, 2005]

This is similar to the distinction, for example, that Drew Fudenberg and I draw in our work on the dual self model . Indeed Max Weber's own words about the essential irrationality of that deepest of all emotions - love - is instructive

Under these conditions, the erotic relation seems to offer the unsurpassable peak of the fulfillment of the request for love in the direct fusion of the souls of one to the other. The boundless giving of oneself is as radical as possible in its opposition to all functionality, rationality, and generality. . . It is so overpowering that it is treated "symbolically": as a sacrament. The lover realizes himself to be rooted in the kernel of the truly living, which is eternally inaccessible to any rational endeavor. He knows himself to be freed from the cold skeleton hands of rational orders, just as completely as from the banality of everyday routine. [Max Weber, Zwischenbetrachtung, 1958]
[Posted at 07/28/2009 05:54 AM by David K. Levine ]

A Long Run Collaboration:

A Long Run Collaboration on Long Run Games bringing together Drew's and my work on the subject from the early 1980s to the present. [Posted at 01/20/2009 01:08 PM by David K. Levine ]

Against Intellectual Monopoly:

Michele's and my book about copyrights and patents from Cambridge University Press is out. You can order it on Amazon or the publisher Cambridge University Press It will remain available online. We argue that the only solution to the problem of intellectual monopoly is to get rid of it entirely. [Posted at 07/11/2008 02:20 PM by David K. Levine ]

New Blog About IP Related Issues: Go to http://www.againstmonopoly.org for our latest postings on how monopoly inhibits innovation and how to protect innovation. [Posted at 04/23/2006 06:36 AM by David K. Levine ]

Latest papers (more papers, more research, more news)

"The Relationship of Economic Theory to Experiments" [07/21/10] (with J. Zheng)
"Quality Ladders, Competition and Endogenous Growth" [03/23/10] (with M. Boldrin)
"Does Intellectual Monopoly Help Innovation" [12/25/09] (with M. Boldrin)
"Self Control, Risk Aversion, and the Allais Paradox" [10/14/09] (with D. Fudenberg)
"Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?" [06/20/09]

Questions about economic or game theory? Try our forum.

General interest material about game theory, including an introductory essay, a reading list, and a forum for questions and answers. You can also find information about the work of Armen A. Alchian, Jack Hirshleifer and other general interest material.