运筹学Ⅲ教学资料 14 Game Theory.pdfVIP

Game Theory In previous chapters, we have encountered many situations in which a single decision maker chooses an optimal decision without reference to the effect that the decision has on other deci- sion makers (and without reference to the effect that the decisions of others have on him or her). In many business situations, however, two or more decision makers simultaneously choose an ac- tion, and the action chosen by each player affects the rewards earned by the other players. For ex- ample, each fast-food company must determine an advertising and pricing policy for its product, and each company’s decision will affect the revenues and profits of other fast-food companies. Game theory is useful for making decisions in cases where two or more decision makers have conflicting interests. Most of our study of game theory deals with situations where there are only two decision makers (or players), but we briefly study n-person (where n 2) game theory also. We begin our study of game theory with a discussion of two-player games in which the players have no common interest. 14.1 Two-Person Zero-Sum and Constant-Sum Games: Saddle Points Characteristics of Two-Person Zero-Sum Games 1 There are two players (called the row player and the column player). 2 The row player must choose 1 of m strategies. Simultaneously, the column player must choose 1 of n strategies. 3 If the row player chooses his ith strategy and the column player chooses his j th strat- egy, then the row player receives a reward of aij and the column player loses an amount a . Thus, we may think of the row