Topics in Game Theory

Picking up where ECON 439 left off, this course pushes past one-shot simultaneous games into the messier territory where players move in sequence, hold private information, or sit down to bargain over how to split a joint payoff. You'll work through problem sets and exams that ask you to refine Nash equilibrium when it gives too many answers (sequential, trembling-hand perfect), trace how reputation and threats sustain cooperation in repeated play, and compute solution concepts like the Shapley value, core, and nucleolus on coalitional games. It's the natural bridge between the first game theory course and applied fields like industrial organization, mechanism design, and political economy, where the real action lives in dynamics and asymmetric information.