Research School of Economics Public Lecture “The Impact of John Nash on Economics and Game Theory” Speaker: Professor George Mailath, University of Pennsylvania Date: Thursday 23 July 2015, 5:30pm – 7pm Venue: Manning Clark Centre, Lecture Theatre 4, ANU Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-impact-of-john-nash-on-economics-and-game-theory-tickets-17406565506 John Nash tragically died in May 2015. This talk will describe his impact on the disciplines of Economics and Game Theory. In the first half of the twentieth century, economics focused on the determination of prices and quantities through supply and demand. Key to this is the notion of competitive equilibrium, which treats buyers and sellers as agents who do not behave strategically. In 1944, von Neumann and Morgenstern’s book, Games and Economic Behavior, introduced the formal analysis of strategic behavior: Game Theory. This work focused on zero sum games and cooperative games, which excludes scenarios such as the prisoners’ dilemma, strategic bargaining, and coordination games. In a series of strikingly original papers, Nash extended game theory to non- zero sum games through his notion of an “equilibrium point” (now called Nash equilibrium), introduced a bargaining solution (now called the Nash bargaining solution) and stressed the importance of connecting cooperative and non-cooperative (bargaining) theory (the Nash program). George J Mailath is a Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting professor in the ANU Research School of Economics. He earned his undergraduate degree at ANU and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. Professor Mailath joined the faculty at UPenn in 1985 and was named the Walter H Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences in 2003. In 2006-2007, Professor Mailath was named Alfred Cowles Professor of Economics at Yale University. He is or has been an associate editor or editorial board member of Econometrica, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Economic Theory, Games and Economic Behavior, the International Economic Review, and Economic Theory. His research interests include pricing, noncooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory, repeated games, social norms, and the foundations of reputations. George Mailath flyer 2015