Theory of Games and Economic BehaviorJohn Von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

by John Von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern · first published 1944

9mentions
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9HN commenters
2010–2026first – last mentioned

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Theory of Games and Economic Behavior is written by mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern and became the groundbreaking text that created the research field of game theory. It is considered the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based.

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What Hacker News says

  • MaysonL · Dec 13, 2017 · Recommends

    The original: Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, published in 1944 by Princeton University Press, by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern the text that created the interdisciplinary research field of game theory, is still worth reading.

    on “Game Theory: Open Access textbook” ↗
  • sevensor · Aug 19, 2016 · Mentions

    …early work on and thinking about computers was about the possibility of top-down social control. This features explicitly in Weiner's Cybernetics and at least implicitly in Von Neumann and Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. (The Soviets latched onto the same idea and tried to build a central-planning computer network.) The "hacking" ethic was really part of the counterculture, and like the counterculture, it ultimately…

    on “The Hacker's Manifesto (1986)” ↗
  • QuesnayJr · Mar 7, 2021 · Mentions

    They didn't, though. Look at von Neumann and Morganstern's "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior". There's nothing in there about time-series averages. It's a theory of games that you might play only once.

    on “The Ergodicity Problem in Economics” ↗
  • jseliger · Jun 7, 2010 · Mentions

    …un-Googlable terms, unfortunately. If you want to learn more about this, check out Ken Binmore's Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction, which is pretty readable, and one of the major original books, Theory of games and economic behavior, by John Von Neumann.

    on “The unemployed will not be considered” ↗
  • Tryk · Dec 2, 2022 · Mentions

    …in the article. Morgernstern's name is mentioned 10 times in the article. For instance: >"This is most evident in his treatment of von Neumann’s pioneering work in the social sciences, the 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, written in collaboration with the economist Oskar Morgenstern."

    on “How the game theory of John von Neumann transformed the 20th century” ↗
  • dempedempe · Oct 2, 2026 · Mentions

    Saying that von Neumann was one of the first game theorists undersells it. He wrote the original book on game theory! The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior with Oskar Morgenstern. Relatedly, MAD was his conception as well.

    on “The Legend of von Neumann (1973) [pdf]” ↗
  • …concentration of wealth within the United States in the hands of a few thousand people amounts to central planning is empirical evidence in favor of the application to the US economy of a theorem in the Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In Chapter 11 of The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (TGEB), Morgenstern and Von Neumann attempt to reduce the general theory of n-person games to the theory of (n+1)-person zero-sum games through…

    on “Extreme concentration of wealth in US economy has led to central planning” ↗
  • JoshCole · Feb 21, 2023 · Mentions

    …I've also read Deep Learning which is by Goodfellow et. all. I've read some of Reinforcement Learning by Sutton and completed successful reinforcement learning projects. Hell, I've even read a lot of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. I've taken a course in Control theory. During my employment at a what used to be a FANG, but is now MANGA, I worked on machine learning systems. I've read…

    on “Running large language models like ChatGPT on a single GPU” ↗
  • KK7NIL · Jan 23, 2026 · Mentions

    > Where is the proof? von Neuman proved it for 2 players in his classic "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior": https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.215284/page/n3... Nash proved it for n-players: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1063129/pdf/pnas015... > "GTO" is only possible against perfect…

    on “My first year in sales as technical founder” ↗

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