Game Theory studies the human aspect of decision making. The most profound lesson of the past decades is that incentives do matter. Humans strategize even the most trivial situations – or put in another way – they play games. To calculate the shortest path between two points in the city is a simple optimization problem, knowing that people are aware of this and try different routes to avoid congestion is game theory. When students apply for university, when voters elect a new government, when couples divorce and share their assets it’s all game theory. Ultimately, the question that separates Game Theory from other branches of Economics is not “What is the subject of our study?” but rather “How to study this subject?”. That is, Game Theory is a methodology, a perspective – and looking at the number of Nobel Memorial Prizes distributed to game theorists – a rather successful one.
The Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (KRTK) was established on January 1st 2012 with the merger of three academic institutes. The Institute of Economics, the Institute for World Economy and the Institute of Regional Studies remain independent in their scientific activities. They continue to fulfil their public tasks as defined in the Deed of Foundation at the highest scientific level.
An international society for the advancement of game theory and its applications, the Game Theory Society, began operations on January 1, 1999. The Game Theory Society promotes the investigation, teaching, and application of game theory and holds its World Congress every four years. Inter alia, the Game Theory Society recognizes, by prizes and awards, the work of outstanding contributors to the field; acts as a source of reliable information about game theory to the popular media; represents the interests of its members; encourages the development of game theory and its applications in less developed countries and in areas of the world where it is not yet established. The Game Theory Society has two official journals, Games and Economic Behavior and the International Journal of Game Theory.