Cooperation & Game Theory

Cooperation gets interesting when what's best for one person depends on what other people do. Game theory gives us a way to study that problem by making the choices and their consequences explicit.

The entries here cover shared resources, trust, bargaining, and the incentives to help or hold back. Games such as the prisoner's dilemma and the public goods game make these tensions easier to see. Other topics look at how behavior spreads through groups and how people's connections affect what they do.