Game theorists speak

Pointing you to a new book about Game Theory. Unlike other references, which present specific game theory models, this is really about the theory, its key areas, progress, empirical application, and future prospects. It is based on interviews with top scholars in the field. I have only the online excerpts to go on, but it is already mostly fascinating. The most interesting of these are of Ken Binmore, Tom Schelling, and Bob Sugden, which are all about the real world applications of game theory. Let's hear from Nobel Laureate Sugden:

Conventional game theory presupposes that each player’s motivations can be represented by numerical payoffs, assigned to the outcomes of strategy profiles, and that the combined behaviour of the players of a game can be explained by using solution concepts that use these payoffs as data. But what entitles game theory to claim that this strategy of explanation will work? It is not a self-evident truth that players are motivated by individual payoffs, or that standard solution principles, such as dominance, hold when defined relative to such payoffs.16 To know if this strategy works, we need to be shown that there is a method of assigning payoffs to real-world games such that, when it is used, the solution concepts of game theory lead to successful predictions. If this strategy doesn’t work, game theory is at fault and needs to be changed. If progress is to be possible, the first essential is that game theorists recognise that it is their job to make their theories fit the world. That is what science is all about.