Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situations

All of life is a sly, byzantine battle of wits in this intriguing if somewhat contrived treatise. Duke business professor McAdams gives a sketchy but engaging rundown of topics in game theory—especially the celebrated Prisoners’ Dilemma, the conundrum that prompts perps to rat each other out when they would be better off remaining silent—and applies them to confrontations between business competitors, nuclear superpowers, college football teams, bacterial species, doctors and patients, and parents and children. From his analyses flow enlightening discussions about the role of regulations, cartels and collusion, retaliation and punishment, trust and ongoing relationships, and transparency of actions in shaping economic and social behavior. McAdams deploys these precepts to suggest solutions to real-world problems, from stamping out fraud on eBay and lowering real-estate agents’ commissions to regulating fisheries and suppressing antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. None of this quite gels into “the game-theory approach to life” that he touts, but rather amounts to a shrewd but unsystematic probing of the complex, subtle, often perverse incentives that creep into business and social interactions. Still, McAdams’s nifty insights into the oddities of gamesmanship make for an absorbing read. 30 illus. (Jan.)