Game Theory (Yale ECON 159, Ben Polak)

Ben Polak's Yale lectures, recorded in fall 2007, are the best free account of strategic thinking, and they are genuinely entertaining because students play the games in class before the theory explains what they did. The 24 lectures cover dominance, backward induction, Nash equilibrium, commitment, credibility and signaling, with examples from economics and politics. Game theory pays off whenever coverage turns to bargaining, trade standoffs, price wars or a threat that may or may not be meant: the lectures on credibility show why some promises bind and others do not. Yale lists introductory microeconomics as required and uses some one-variable calculus, so take it after a principles course.