Michael writes
Maybe they should have checked with the Pentagon. You all know the original purpose.
Yes, and the roots of game theory--traceable back to the 19th century work of Cournot and Bertrand--had nothing to do with military applications. Von Neumann's original work in game theory in the 1920s was not funded by the military. Most of contemporary game theory concerns positive-sum games, and thus is not of immediate relevance to the Pentagon. So I'm not sure why Michael brought this up.
Game theory always seemed like a rather sterile exericize in the economics literature, but micro economists seem to like it.
Again I'm puzzled. What makes the application of game theory to economic problems a "sterile exercise"?
Gil
--
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
