GAME THEORY

GAME THEORY is a branch of mathematics used to analyze competitive

situations whose outcomes depend not only on one's own choices, and perhaps
chance, but also on the choices made by other parties, or players. Since the
outcome of a game is dependent on what all players do, each player tries to
anticipate the probable choices of other players in order to determine his own
best choice. How these interdependent strategic calculations may reasonably be
made is the subject of the theory.
odern game theory was created practically at one stro!e by the publication in
"#$$ of %heory of &ames and 'conomic (ehavior by the mathematician )ohn
von *eumann and the economist +s!ar orgenstern. %his boo! stimulated
rapid, worldwide development of the mathematical theory and its applications to
economics, politics, military science, operations research, business, law, sports,
biology, and other fields. ,t has had a major influence, widening and refining
common discourse on strategic thin!ing.
%he theory has several major divisions, the following being the most important-
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Introduction
branch of applied mathematics fashioned to analyze certain situations in which
there is an interplay between parties that may have similar, opposed, or mi5ed
interests. ,n a typical game, decision0ma!ing players, who each have their
own goals, try to outsmart one another by anticipating each other's decisions6 the
game is finally resolved as a conse7uence of the players' decisions. 8 solution to
a game prescribes the decisions the players should ma!e and describes the
game's appropriate outcome.
&ame theory serves as a guide for players and as a tool for predicting the
outcome of a game. 8lthough game theory may be used to analyze ordinary
parlour games, its range of application is much wider. ,n fact, game theory was
originally designed by the Hungarian0born 8merican mathematician )ohn von
*eumann and his colleague +s!ar orgenstern, a &erman0born 8merican
economist, to solve problems in economics. ,n their boo! %he %heory of &ames
and 'conomic (ehavior, published in "#$$, von *eumann and orgenstern
asserted that the mathematics developed for the physical sciences, which
describes the wor!ings of a disinterested nature, was a poor model for
economics. %hey observed that economics is much li!e a game in which the
players anticipate one another's moves and that it therefore re7uires a new !ind
of mathematics, which they appropriately named game theory.
&ame theory may be applied in situations in which decision ma!ers must ta!e
into account the reasoning of other decision ma!ers. (y stressing strategic
aspects9aspects controlled by the participants rather than by pure chance9the
method both supplements and goes beyond the classical theory of probability. ,t
has been used, for e5ample, to determine the formation of political coalitions or
business conglomerates, the optimum price at which to sell products or services,
the power of a voter or a bloc of voters, the selection of a jury, the best site for a
manufacturing plant, and even the behaviour of certain species in the struggle
for survival.,t would be surprising if any one theory could address such a wide
range of games, and, in fact, there is no single game theory. 8 number of
theories e5ist, each applicable to a different !ind of situation and each with its
own !ind of solution :or solutions;.%his article discusses some of the simpler
games and theories as well as the basic principles involved in game theory.
8dditional techni7ues and concepts that may be used in solving decision
problems are treated in optimization. <or information pertaining to the classical
theory of probability, see the articles mathematics, history of6 and probability
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Classification of games
&ames are grouped into several categories according to certain significant
features, the most obvious of which is the number of players involved. 8 game
can thus be designated as being one0person, two0person, or n0person :with n
larger than two;, and the games in each category have their own distinct natures.
8 player need not be a single person, of course6 it may be a nation, a
corporation, or a team consisting of many people with identical interests relative
to the game. ,n games of perfect information, such as chess, each player !nows
everything about the game at all times. =o!er, on the other hand, is an e5ample
of a game of imperfect information because players do not !now the cards the
other players are dealt.
%he e5tent to which the goals of the players are opposed or coincide is another
basis for classifying games. >ero0sum :or, more accurately, constant0sum; games
are completely competitive. =o!er, for e5ample, is a zero0sum game because the
combined wealth of the players remains constant6 if one player wins, another
must lose because money is neither created nor destroyed. =layers in zero0sum
games have completely conflicting interests. ,n nonzero0sum games, however,
all the players can be winners :or losers;. ,n a labour0management dispute, for
e5ample, the two parties have some conflicting interests yet both may benefit if
a stri!e is avoided.
*onzero0sum games can be further distinguished as being either cooperative or
noncooperative. ,n cooperative games players may communicate and ma!e
binding agreements in advance6 in noncooperative games they may not. 8n
automobile salesman and a potential customer are engaged in a cooperative
game, as is a business and its employees6 participants bidding independently at
an auction are playing a noncooperative game.
<inally, a game is said to be finite when each player has a finite number of
decisions to ma!e and has only a finite number of alternatives for each decision.
.hess, chec!ers, po!er, and most parlour games are finite. ,nfinite games, in
which there are either an infinite number of alternatives or an infinite number of
decisions, are much subtler and more complicated. %hey are discussed only
briefly in this article.
8 game can usually be described in one of three ways- in e5tensive, normal, or
characteristic0function form. ost parlour games, which progress step by step, a
move at a time, are described in e5tensive form6 that is, they are represented by
a tree. 'ach step or position is represented by a verte5 of the tree, and the
branches connecting the vertices represent the players' alternatives or moves.
%he normal form is used primarily to describe two0person games. ,n this form a
game is represented by a matri5 in which each column is associated with a
strategy of one player and each row with a strategy of the second player6 the
matri5 entry in a particular row and column is the outcome of the game if the
two associated strategies are used. %he normal form is important theoretically
and can also be used in practice if the number of available strategies is small.
%he characteristic0function form, which is generally used only for games with
more than two players, indicates the minimum value each coalition of players
:including single0player coalitions; can obtain when playing against a coalition
made up of all the remaining players.
One-person games
,n the one0person game, the simplest game of all, there is only one decision
ma!er. (ecause he has no opponents to thwart him, the player need only list the
options available to him and then choose one. ,f chance is involved, the game
might seem to be more complicated, but in principle the decision is still
relatively simple. 8 man deciding whether to carry an umbrella, for e5ample,
weighs the ris!s involved and ma!es his choice. He may ma!e the wrong
decision, but he need not be worried about being outsmarted by other players6
that is, he need not ta!e into account the decisions of others. +ne0person games,
therefore, hold little interest for game theoreticians.
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Two-person zero-sum games
Games of perfect information
%he simplest game of any real theoretical interest is the finite two0person zero0
sum game of perfect information. '5amples of such games include chess,
chec!ers, and the )apanese game go. ,n "#"1 'rnst >ermelo proved that such
games are strictly determined6 this means that rational players ma!ing use of all
available information can deduce a strategy that is clearly optimal and so the
outcome of such games is preordained. ,n chess, for e5ample, e5actly one of
three possibilities must be true- :"; white has a winning strategy :one that wins
against any strategy of blac!;6 :1; blac! has an analogous winning strategy6 or
:?; white and blac! each have a strategy that guarantees them a win or a draw.
:=roper play by both white and blac! leads to a draw.; (ecause a sufficiently
rapid computer could analyze such games completely, they are of only minor
theoretical interest.
Games of imperfect information
%he simplest two0person zero0sum games of imperfect information are those that
have saddle points. :8ll two0person zero0sum games of perfect information have
saddle points.; Such games have a predetermined outcome :assuming rational
play;, and each player can, by choosing the right strategy, obtain an amount at
least e7ual to this outcome no matter what the other player does. %his
predetermined outcome is called the value of the game. 8n e5ample of such a
game is described in normal form below.
%wo campaigning political parties, 8 and (, must each decide how to handle a
controversial issue in a certain town. %hey can either support the issue, oppose
it, or evade it. 'ach party must ma!e its decision without !nowing what its rival
will do. 'very pair of decisions determines the percentage of the vote that each
party receives in the town, and each party wants to ma5imize its own percentage
of the vote. %he entries in the matri5 represent party 8's percentage :the
remaining percentage goes to party (;6 if, for e5ample, 8 supports the issue and
( evades it, 8 gets @2 percent :and (, 12 percent; of the vote.8's decision seems
difficult at first because it depends upon ('s strategy. 8 does best to oppose if (
supports, evade if ( opposes, and support if ( evades. 8 must therefore consider
('s decision before ma!ing its own. *o matter what 8 does, ( gains the largest
percentage of votes by opposing the issue. +nce 8 recognizes this, its strategy
should clearly be to evade and settle for ?2 percent of the vote. %his ?2
percentAB2 percent division of the vote is the game's saddle point.
8 more systematic way of finding the saddle point is to determine the ma5imin
and minima5 values. Csing this method, 8 first determines the minimum
percentage of votes it can obtain for each of its strategies and then finds the
ma5imum of these three minimum values. %he minimum percentages 8 will get
if it supports, opposes, or evades are, respectively, 12, 1D, and ?26 the largest of
these, ?2, is the ma5imin value. Similarly, for each strategy it chooses, (
determines the ma5imum percentage of votes 8 can win :and thus the minimum
that ( can win;. ,n this case if ( supports, opposes, or evades, the ma5imum 8
gets is @2, ?2, or @2, respectively. ( obtains its highest percentage by
minimizing 8's ma5imum percentage of the vote. %he smallest of 8's ma5imum
values is ?2, and ?2 is therefore ('s minima5 value. (ecause both the minima5
and the ma5imin values are ?2, ?2 is a saddle point. %he two parties might as
well announce their strategies in advance6 neither gains from the !nowledge.
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Two-person nonzero-sum games
ost of the early wor! in game theory involved completely competitive two0
person zero0sum games because they are the simplest to treat mathematically.
(oth players in such games have a clear purpose :to outplay their opponent;, and
there is general agreement about what constitutes a solution. ost games that
arise in practice, however, are nonzero0sum ones6 the players have both common
and opposed interests. <or e5ample, a buyer and a seller are engaged in a
nonzero0sum game :the buyer wants a low price and the seller a high one, but
both want to ma!e a deal;, as are two hostile nations :they may disagree about
numerous issues, but both gain if they avoid going to war;.8ll zero0sum games
are the same in one respect- the players are acting at cross0purposes. *onzero0
sum games differ radically from them :and from each other;, and many
obvious properties of zero0sum games are no longer valid. ,n zero0sum games,
for e5ample, players cannot gain :they may or may not lose, but they cannot
gain; if they are deprived of some of their strategies. ,n nonzero0sum games,
however, players may well gain if some of their options are no longer available.
%his might not seem logical at first. +ne would thin! that if it benefited a player
not to use certain strategies, the player would simply avoid those strategies and
choose a more advantageous one, but this is not always possible. <or e5ample,
in a region with high unemployment a wor!er may be willing to accept a low
salary rather than lose a job, but, if a minimum wage law ma!es that option
illegal, the wor!er may be forced to re7uire a higher salary than he might
otherwise have accepted.
+ne of the factors that most reveals the difference between zero0sum and
nonzero0sum games is the effect of communication on the game. ,n zero0sum
games it never helps a player to give an adversary information, and it never
harms a player to learn an opponent's strategy in advance. %hese rules do not
necessarily hold true for nonzero0sum games, however. 8 player may want his
opponent to be well0informed. ,n a labourEmanagement dispute, for e5ample, if
the labour union is prepared for a stri!e, it behooves it to inform management
and thereby possibly achieve its goal without a long, costly conflict. ,n this
e5ample, management is not harmed by the advance information :it, too,
benefits by avoiding the costly stri!e;, but in other nonzero0sum games a player
can be at a disadvantage if he !nows his opponent's strategy. 8 blac!mailer, for
e5ample, benefits only if he informs his victim that he will harm the victim
unless his terms are met. ,f he does not give this information to the intended
victim, the blac!mailer can still do damage but he has no reason to. %hus,
!nowledge of the blac!mailer's strategy wor!s to the victim's disadvantage.
Cooperatie ersus noncooperatie games
.ommunication is irrelevant in zero0sum games because there is no possibility
of the players cooperating :their interests are e5actly opposite;. ,n nonzero0sum
games the ability to communicate, the degree of communication, and even the
order in which players communicate can have a profound influence on the
outcome of the game. &ames in which players are allowed to communicate and
ma!e binding agreements are called cooperative, and games in which players are
not allowed to communicate are called noncooperative. ,n the e5ample shown
below, it is to player ('s advantage if the game is cooperative and to player 8's
advantage if the game is noncooperative. :*ote that in nonzero0sum games each
matri5 entry consists of two numbers. (ecause the combined wealth of the
players is not constant, it is not possible to deduce one player's payoff from the
payoff of the other6 both players' payoffs must be given. &enerally, the first
number in each entry represents the payoff to the player whose strategies are
listed in a column Fhere, player (G, and the second number represents the payoff
to the player whose strategies are listed in a row Fhere, player 8G.;Hithout
communication, each player should apply the sure0thing principle of
ma5imizing his minimum payoff6 that is, each should determine the minimum
amount he could e5pect to get no matter what his opponent does. 8 would
determine that he would do best to choose strategy , no matter what ( does :if (
chooses i, 8 gets 1 rather than "6 if ( chooses ii, 8 gets 0"22 rather than 0D22;. (
would similarly determine that he does best to choose i no matter what 8 does.
Csing these two strategies, 8 would gain 1 and ( would gain ". ,n a cooperative
game, however, ( can threaten to play ii unless 8 agrees to play ,,. ,f 8 agrees,
his gain is reduced to " while ('s gain rises to ?6 if 8 does not agree and (
carries out his threat, ( neither gains nor loses, but 8 loses "22.+ften, both
players may gain from the ability to communicate. %wo pilots trying to avoid a
midair collision clearly benefit if they are allowed to communicate, and the
degree of communication allowed between them may even determine whether or
not they crash. &enerally, the more two players' interests coincide, the more
important and advantageous communication becomes.
%he solution to a completely cooperative game in which players share one
common goal involves coordinating the players' decisions effectively. ,t is
relatively straightforward, as is the solution to completely competitive, or zero0
sum, games. <or games in which players have both common and conflicting
interests9in other words for most nonzero0sum games, whether cooperative or
noncooperative9the solution is much harder to define persuasively
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Two-person nonzero-sum games
Mi!ed strategies
,n two0person zero0sum games it is often prudent for players to use mi5ed
strategies in order to hide their intentions. %he 8merican social scientist Henry
Hamburger showed that mi5ed strategies are useful in nonzero0sum games as
well. He described the dilemma facing a community in which the number of
high0speed automobile accidents was rising and the cost of strict enforcement of
speed limits was prohibitively high. He assumed that all of the costs and benefits
to drivers and to society associated with a speed limit could be calculated, and
he then tried to determine how well the speed limit could be enforced. 8fter
considering such factors as the cost of strict enforcement, the ris! of accidents to
the driver and their cost to the community, the penalty to the driver when caught,
and the time the driver saved by violating speed laws, he constructed the
following payoff matri5.
,t can be seen that the cost to the community of strict enforcement is high
whatever the driver does. %hus, a driver who tends to speed will deduce that
strict enforcement is not li!ely and will violate the law6 the community deduces
that it does better not to enforce the law strictly even if it is aware of the
motorist's violation. ,f, however, the community rejects both pure strategies
:complete enforcement and complete neglect; and announces that it will enforce
the law precisely "2 percent of the time9and actually does so9the matri5 is
transformed into the one shown below.
8 driver who violates the law now loses "2, which should induce him to obey
the law :and brea! even;. %he cost to the community of this partial enforcement
is thus only 1, which is lower than the cost of ignoring the law and allowing
drivers to violate it. %he community clearly benefits by using the mi5ed strategy.
"-person games
%heoretically, n0person games in which the players are not allowed to
communicate are not essentially different from two0person games. ,f
cooperation is allowed, however, there is an opportunity for some players to join
forces and act as a single unit, significantly changing the nature of the game. ,n
such games the fate of each player is much more dependent upon the decisions
of others than in one0 and two0person games6 conse7uently, the concept of a
best strategy is even harder to define persuasively.
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8dditional reading%he seminal wor! in game theory is )ohn Ion *eumann and
+s!ar orgenstern, %heory of &ames and 'conomic (ehavior, ?rd ed. :"#D?,
reprinted "#@2;. &ame theory as a whole is covered in the following boo!s,
listed in order of increasing difficulty- 8natol Japoport, <ights, &ames, and
Kebates :"#L2, reprinted "#LB;6 orton K. Kavis, &ame %heory- 8
*ontechnical ,ntroduction, rev. ed. :"#@?;6 J. Kuncan Muce and Howard Jaiffa,
&ames and Kecisions- ,ntroduction and .ritical Survey :"#DB, reprinted "#LB;6
and &uillermo +wen, &ame %heory, 1nd ed. :"#@1;. 8pplications of game
theory are presented in *esmith .. 8n!eny, =o!er Strategy- Hinning with &ame
%heory :"#@", reprinted "#@1;6 Jobert 85elrod, %he 'volution of .ooperation
:"#@$;, concerned with evolution and ecology6 Steven ). (rams, &ame %heory
and =olitics :"#BD;6 and Henry Hamburger, &ames as odels of Social
=henomena :"#B#;. Cseful essays and journal articles include Jobert ). 8umann
and ichael aschler, %he (argaining Set for .ooperative &ames, in .
Kresher, M.S. Shapley, and 8.H. %uc!er :eds.;, 8dvances in &ame %heory
:"#L$;, pp. $$?E$BL, the basis of the 8umannEaschler solution concept6
Kaniel Nahneman and 8mos %vers!y, %he =sychology of =references,
Scientific 8merican, 1$L:";-"L2E"B? :)anuary "#@1;, a discussion of the
validity of the assumptions that underlie utility theory6 M.S. Shapley, 8 Ialue
for *0=erson &ames, in H.H. Nuhn and 8.H. %uc!er :eds.;, .ontributions to
the %heory of &ames, vol. 1 :"#D?;, pp. ?2BE?"B, the foundation of the Shapley
value6 )ohn aynard Smith, %he 'volution of (ehavior, Scientific 8merican,
1?#:?;-"BLE"#1 :September "#B@;6 and =hilip K. Straffin, )r., %he (andwagon
.urve, 8merican )ournal of =olitical Science, 1":$;-L#DEB2# :*ovember
"#BB;, which e5plains bandwagon effect on the basis of the Shapley
value.orton K. Kavis .opyright / "##$01221 'ncyclop3dia (ritannica,
,nc.44
*0person games 8pplications Ioting games ,n situations involving voting there
is a well0defined procedure for decision ma!ing by a well0defined set of players,
and any outcome is dependent upon these decisions. oreover, it often
behooves a voter to anticipate the votes of others before he votes himself. ,t is
not surprising, therefore, that many of the applications of n0person game theory
are concerned with voting.+ne of the most basic problems game theory has tried
to answer is how to choose a good voting procedure. ,t might seem that
finding a suitable voting system is simple, but in fact there are many difficulties,
as can be seen in the following e5ample. 8 voting body has three alternatives9
8, (, and .9from which it must choose one. 8 decision rule pic!s one of these
three alternatives on the basis of how the electorate voted. Ioter preference is
described by the notation :8(.; O !, which means that ! voters prefer 8 to (
and ( to ..+ne decision rule often used in practice is to choose the plurality
favourite9the alternative receiving the largest number of votes. <ollowing this
rule, if there are L2 voters, :8(.; O 1", :(.8; O 12, :.(8; O "#, and each
voter bac!s his favourite candidate, then 8 would win. (ut almost two0thirds of
the electorate consider 8 the worst choice and, in fact, 8 would lose a two0way
election against either ( or . by almost 1 to ".%o avoid this parado5, a two0stage
election can be instituted in which the least0preferred alternative is eliminated in
the first round, and the winner is then chosen from the remaining two
alternatives in the second round. ,n this type of election, if :(8.; O :.8(; O 1"
and :8(.; O "@, then 8 would be eliminated in the first round and ( would
defeat . ?# to 1" in the second round. ,n a two0way election between 8 and (,
however, 8 would win by almost two to one. ,t is clear that two0stage elections
may also provide parado5ical results. ,n fact, it has been proven that any voting
system with at least three alternatives will under certain conditions lead to an
outcome that most people would consider inappropriate.+ne of the basic
difficulties in devising a satisfactory voting system is that group preferences are
what mathematicians call intransitive. %his means that a group may prefer 8 to
(, ( to ., and . to 8, as is the case when precisely one0third of the electorate
has each of the following preferences- :8(.;, :(.8;, and :.8(;. 8nother
difficulty with voting systems is that voters may vote strategically rather than
sincerely. ,t may seem that in a plurality voting system the most popular first
choice would win, but it often serves a voter's purpose to bac! his second
choice. ,f :8(.; O 1", :(8.; O 12, and :.(8; O "#, the "# :.(8; voters do
well to switch from . to (6 that way, they get their second, rather than their
third, choice. %his is commonly !nown as voting for the lesser evil.%he
Shapley value Hhen members of a voting body control different numbers of
votes, it is natural to as! how the voting powers of these members compare.
&ame theoreticians have therefore devoted much thought to the problem of how
to calculate the power of an individual or a coalition. ,t is intuitively clear that
the power of a senator differs from that of the president, but it is another thing to
assign actual 7uantitative values to these powers. 8t first, it might seem that
power is proportional to the number of votes cast, but the following e5ample
demonstrates that this cannot be right. ,f 8, (, and . control three, two, and two
votes, respectively, and decisions are made by majority vote, then, clearly,
everyone has the same power despite 8's e5tra vote.%he 8merican
mathematician Mloyd S. Shapley devised a measure of the power of a coalition
based upon certain assumptions :e.g., the power of a coalition depends upon the
characteristic function only;. ,n voting games, which are sometimes called
simple games, every coalition has the value " :if it has enough votes to win; or
2 :if it does not;. %he sum of the powers of all the players is ". ,f a player has 2
power, his vote has no influence on the outcome of the vote6 and if a player has a
power of ", the outcome depends on his vote only. %he !ey to calculating voting
power is determining the fre7uency with which a player is the swing voter. ,n
other words, it is assumed that the members of a body vote for a measure in
every possible permutation :or order;. %he fraction of all permutations in which
someone is the swing voter9that is, where the measure had insufficient votes to
pass before the swing vote but enough to pass after it9is defined to be the
Shapley value, or power, of that voter.<or e5ample, in an electorate with five
members98, (, ., K, and '9with one, two, three, four, and five votes,
respectively, decision is by majority rule. Kespite the disparity in the number of
votes each member controls, 8 and ( each have a Shapley value of "A"D, . and
K each have a value of BA?2, and ' has a value of 1AD. %his reflects the fact that
any winning coalition containing 8 and not containing ( will still win if 8 and (
both change their votes9they each have e5actly the same power. 8 similar
statement can be made concerning . and K.
%he Shapley value has been used in a number of ways, some of them 7uite
surprising. ,t has been used to calculate the relative power of the permanent and
nonpermanent members in the Cnited *ations Security .ouncil :the five
permanent members have #@ percent of the power;, the power of a C.S.
congressman as compared to that of a senator or the president, and the power of
members of various city councils. Csing a variation of this concept, )ohn
(anzhaf, an 8merican attorney, successfully challenged a weighted system of
voting in *assau .ounty, *ew Por!, in which si5 municipalities had,
respectively, nine, nine, seven, three, one, and one members on the (oard of
Supervisors. (anzhaf proved that the three municipalities with the lowest
weights were effectively disenfranchised because two of the top three weights
guaranteed "L out of ?2 votes, a majority.
%he Shapley value shows that if a voting body has one powerful member with
"D votes and ?2 members with one vote each, the power of the strong member is
"DA?", which is considerably more than the third of the votes that that member
controls. ,n general, one large bloc of votes amidst a sea of small blocs is usually
disproportionately strong. :<or this reason, populous states are stronger in the
C.S. electoral college than their votes would indicate, even though the fact that
every state, whatever the size of its population, has two senators seems to give
an edge to the smaller states.; .onversely, when a voting body consists of two
large, appro5imately e7ual blocs and one small bloc, it is the small bloc that has
the disproportionate power. :,f there are a total of three voters and two have "22
votes and one has one vote, all have the same power if the majority rules.; ,t is
because of these two phenomena that political conventions are unstable. Hhen
two e7ually powerful factions are vying for power, the uncommitted parties on
the sidelines have a great deal of leverage6 but as soon as one of the rival
factions shows signs of succeeding, its power increases 7uic!ly at the e5pense of
its main competitor and those on the sidelines, leading to the well0!nown
bandwagon effect.
.uriously, the Shapley value, which was designed to measure the power of a
coalition, has also been applied for an entirely different purpose, as is
demonstrated in the following e5ample. <our airplanes share a runway, and,
because they vary in size, the length of runway each airplane re7uires varies as
well. ,f the value of a coalition of airplanes is defined to be the cost of the
shortest runway re7uired to serve the airplanes in that coalition, the Shapley
value of each airplane represents its e7uitable share of the cost of the runway.
%his method of calculating one party's share of total cost has been adopted by
accountants in practice and reported upon in accounting journals.
Iarious principles and methods of game theory have similarly been applied to
fields other than those for which they were originally developed. 8lthough a
relatively new area of study, game theory plays a significant role in such diverse
subjects as management science, behavioral science, political science,
economics, information theory, control theory, and pure mathematics. ,t has
proved especially useful in analyzing the effect of information, solving problems
of cost or resource allocation, calculating relative political or voting power,
determining e7uilibrium points, and e5plaining patterns of observed behaviour.
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