Micromotives and Macrobehavior

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039306977X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Before Freakonomics and The Tipping Point there was this classic by the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics. "Schelling here offers an early analysis of 'tipping' in social situations involving a large number of individuals." —official citation for the 2005 Nobel Prize Micromotives and Macrobehavior was originally published over twenty-five years ago, yet the stories it tells feel just as fresh today. And the subject of these stories—how small and seemingly meaningless decisions and actions by individuals often lead to significant unintended consequences for a large group—is more important than ever. In one famous example, Thomas C. Schelling shows that a slight-but-not-malicious preference to have neighbors of the same race eventually leads to completely segregated populations. The updated edition of this landmark book contains a new preface and the author's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Choice and Consequence

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674255976
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Thomas Schelling is a political economist “conspicuous for wandering”—an errant economist. In Choice and Consequence, he ventures into the area where rationality is ambiguous in order to look at the tricks people use to try to quit smoking or lose weight. He explores topics as awesome as nuclear terrorism, as sordid as blackmail, as ineffable as daydreaming, as intimidating as euthanasia. He examines ethical issues wrapped up in economics, unwrapping the economics to disclose ethical issues that are misplaced or misidentified. With an ingenious, often startling approach, Schelling brings new perspectives to problems ranging from drug abuse, abortion, and the value people put on their lives to organized crime, airplane hijacking, and automobile safety. One chapter is a clear and elegant exposition of game theory as a framework for analyzing social problems. Another plays with the hypothesis that our minds are not only our problem-solving equipment but also the organ in which much of our consumption takes place. What binds together the different subjects is the author’s belief in the possibility of simultaneously being humane and analytical, of dealing with both the momentous and the familiar. Choice and Consequence was written for the curious, the puzzled, the worried, and all those who appreciate intellectual adventure.

The Strategy of Conflict

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674840317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
Analyzes the nature of international disagreements and conflict resolution in terms of game theory and non-zero-sum games.

Game Theory and Economic Modelling

Author: David M. Kreps
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198283814
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
Comprises lectures given at Tel Aviv University and Oxford University in 1990.

Schelling's Game Theory

Author: Robert Dodge
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199857202
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling taught a course in game theory and rational choice to advanced students and government officials for 45 years. In this book, Robert Dodge provides in language for a broad audience the concepts that Schelling taught. Armed with Schelling's understanding of game theory methods and his approaches to problems, the general reader can improve daily decision making.

Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674025677
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
All of the essays in this new collection by Thomas Schelling convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. Schelling, a 2005 Nobel Prize winner, has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why.

In Praise of Commercial Culture

Author: Tyler COWEN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674029933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Does a market economy encourage or discourage music, literature, and the visual arts? Do economic forces of supply and demand help or harm the pursuit of creativity? This book seeks to redress the current intellectual and popular balance and to encourage a more favorable attitude toward the commercialization of culture that we associate with modernity. Economist Tyler Cowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a plurality of co-existing artistic visions, providing a steady stream of new and satisfying creations, supporting both high and low culture, helping consumers and artists refine their tastes, and paying homage to the past by capturing, reproducing, and disseminating it. Contemporary culture, Cowen argues, is flourishing in its various manifestations, including the visual arts, literature, music, architecture, and the cinema. Successful high culture usually comes out of a healthy and prosperous popular culture. Shakespeare and Mozart were highly popular in their own time. Beethoven's later, less accessible music was made possible in part by his early popularity. Today, consumer demand ensures that archival blues recordings, a wide array of past and current symphonies, and this week's Top 40 hit sit side by side in the music megastore. High and low culture indeed complement each other. Cowen's philosophy of cultural optimism stands in opposition to the many varieties of cultural pessimism found among conservatives, neo-conservatives, the Frankfurt School, and some versions of the political correctness and multiculturalist movements, as well as historical figures, including Rousseau and Plato. He shows that even when contemporary culture is thriving, it appears degenerate, as evidenced by the widespread acceptance of pessimism. He ends by considering the reasons why cultural pessimism has such a powerful hold on intellectuals and opinion-makers.

The Self Organizing Economy

Author: Paul Krugman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1557866988
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 133

Book Description
The Self-Organizing Economy In the last few years the concept of self-organizing systems—complex systems in which randomness and chaos seem spontaneously to evolve into unexpected order—has linked together researchers in many fields, from artificial intelligence to chemistry, from evolution to geology. Now leading economist Paul Krugman shows how principles that explain the growth of hurricanes and embryos can also explain the formation of cities and business cycles; how the same principles of “order from random growth” can explain the strangely simple rules that describe the sizes of earthquakes, meteorites, and metropolitan areas. Weaving together strands from many disciplines, from location theory to biology, The Self-Organizing Economy offers a surprising new view of how the economy structures itself in space and time.

Strategy and Arms

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614277583
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
2014 Reprint of 1961 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This study is an attempt to identify the meaning of arms control in the post war period. It presents an analysis of arms control with particular emphasis on the military policy involved. The general objectives of the study is to advance some aspects of the intellectual state of the art in arms control and to provide some concrete data on the technical and strategic problems of importance. Schelling remains relevant today for his work on game theory.

Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare

Author: Darren Shan
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 031604184X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
From the Master of Horror comes the first gripping book in the twelve book New York Times bestselling Saga of Darren Shan. Start the tale from the beginning in the book that inspired the feature film The Vampire's Assistant and petrified devoted fans worldwide. A young boy named Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque Du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers-- Mr. Crepsley-- is a vampire! Stever remains after the show finishes to confront the vampire-- but his motives are surprising! In the shadows of a crumbling theater, a horrified Darren eavesdrops on his friend and the vampire, and is witness to a monstrous, disturbing plea. As if by destiny, Darren is pulled to Mr. Crepsley and what follows is his horrifying descent into the dark and bloody world of vampires. This is the beginning of Darren's story.