Group Formation in Economics

Broad and diverse ranges of activities are conducted within and by organized groups of individuals, including political, economic and social activities. These activities have recently become a subject of intense interest in economics and game theory. Some of the topics investigated in this collection are models of networks of power and privilege, trade networks, co-authorship networks, buyer-seller networks with differentiated products, and networks of medical innovation and the adaptation of new information. Other topics are social norms on punctuality, clubs and the provision of club goods and public goods, research and development and collusive alliances among corporations, and international alliances and trading agreements. While relatively recent, the literature on game theoretic studies of group formation in economics is already vast. This volume provides an introduction to this important literature on game-theoretic treatments of situations with networks, clubs, and coalitions, including some applications.

Author Biography

Gabrielle Demange is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. She has been co-editor of the journal Economic Theory since 1998 and associate editor of Review of Economic Design also since 1998, Mathematical Social Sciences since 2000 and Finance since 2000. Professor Demange was elected as a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1992 and is a Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. She has conducted research in the areas of social choice theory, and cooperative game theory. Professor Demange’s works on two sided matching games and multi-item auction with David Gale were among the first in a now large field. Much of her recent research concerns risk sharing in financial markets and the design of social security systems. Apart from research articles in eminent journals, Professor Demange has written three text books in finance and game theory. Myrna Wooders is Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University. She has also taught at the Universities of Warwick and Toronto. Professor Wooders is founding editor of the Economics Bulletin, editor of the Journal of Public Economic Theory and president of the Association for Public Economic Theory. Her research has been primarily in the areas of public economic theory and game theory, especially in the interface between the two. Her work, alone and with others, on multijurisdictional economies is well known and widely cited. Professor Wooders has published in leadings journal in economics and game theory including Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, and Games and Economic Behavior. She has also edited a volume, Topics in Mathematical Economics and Game Theory: Essays in Honor of Robert John Aumann, published by the American Mathematical Society. Her awards include the prestigious Connaught Fellowship in the Social Sciences, a Humboldt Research Award for Forec Scientists (Germany), and a research award from the Director General of Universities of Catalunya. Professor Wooders is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, an elected member of the Game Theory Society Council, and a Research Fellow of the German-based CESifo Research Network.