David McAdams
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY LTD 2014, 304 PAGES
PRICE (HARDBACK) £17.99 ISBN 978-0-393-23967-6
Perhaps more so than any other mathematical field, game theory has entered the public consciousness. The Prisoner’s Dilemma has been particularly influential, with its (apparently) dismal implications for the possibility of cooperation between two parties, even when the situation of both would be improved by working together. In this book, David McAdams considers different qualitative responses to the Dilemma in great detail, starting from the premise that ‘the game can always be changed’.
The first half of the book consists of six chapters, each outlining a strategy for transforming a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation: committing, inviting regulation, colluding, enabling retaliation, building trust, and leveraging relationships. For instance, an example of changing a game by inviting regulation would be when sports teams establish a governing federation with the power to ban dangerous but effective tactics. In the absence of such rules, both teams would have an incentive to adopt the tactics for fear of being defeated by a more aggressive opponent, leading to more injuries but no competitive advantage, so their only option is to call for external governance.
A handy flow chart helps the reader to judge which strategy could be applicable to any given situation, and each chapter is filled with a range of examples, drawn from fields as diverse as sports and advertising to military tactics.
The second half of the book applies these strategies to six case studies, based on real life problems such as the growth of antibiotic resistance and identifying honest users on eBay. In each case, McAdams presents a convincing approach to resolve an apparently intractable challenge (his proposed solution to the problem of overfishing is particularly ingenious).
The book as a whole is very well structured. The use of many, short examples in the first half of the book makes the chapters easy to dip in and out of, and each could be read independently, while even the longer case studies in the second half of the book are still relatively concise, averaging about fifteen pages each.
This is very much a business book, based on a successful business school course, and any reader hoping for equations or mathematical analysis will be disappointed. On the other hand, anybody interested in a comprehensive overview of the possible strategies for escaping a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation, combined with a diverse range of examples and case studies ranging from hospital administration to military strategy, will find this a fascinating read.
Paul Taylor AMIMA
Book review published directly onto IMA website (October 2015)
