Playing the co-operation game

By Jon Ainger | 15 April 2014

The ‘discovery’ that human beings are often irrational and not utterly logical ‘econs’, was popularised in 2008 by the book, Nudge.

But, behavioural economics, and its fellow discipline behavioural science has been around for many decades.

One early examination of human decision-making was explored in the ‘game theory’ branch of economics, which started to get interesting for those of us interested in human co-operation when the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ was first posited (originally in 1950).

Want full article access?


Receive The MJ magazine each week and gain access to all the content on this website with a subscription.

Full website content includes additional, exclusive commentary and analysis on the issues affecting local government.

Already a subscriber? Login

Budgets and efficiency
Top