Evolutionary game theory and population dynamics

Abstract

Many socio-economic and biological processes can be modeled as systems of interacting individuals. The behaviour of such systems can be often described within game-theoretic models. We introduce fundamental concepts of evolutionary game theory and review basic properties of deterministic replicator dynamics and stochastic dynamics of finite populations. We discuss the problem of the selection of efficient equilibria and the dependence of the long-run behaviour of a population on various parameters such as the time delay, the noise level, and the size of the population. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.