ABSTRACT
It could seem strange at first sight to use game theory to understand structural changes and institutional organizations of economies. Beyond the well-known objectives of a retrospective bias in reading past economic phenomena through a recent intellectual construction, two major criticisms immediately come to mind. First, game theory is supposed to be derived mainly from a strictly individualistic methodology based on a narrow definition of rationality. Second, the line of reasoning is largely dominated by the backward induction, a mental procedure where individual players are assumed to choose their strategy from the beginning to the end of the game. If game theory was actually built in the spirit of pure individualistic rationality and developed in a stable static perspective, we could legitimately question its relevance for studying structural and institutional changes in economy.
