Experience from a Course in Game Theory: Pre and Post-Class Problem Sets as a Didactic Device.

The paper summarizes my experience in teaching an undergraduate course in game theory in 1998. Students were required to submit two types of problem sets: pre-class problem sets, which served as experiments, and post-class problem sets, which require the students to study and apply the solution concepts taught in the course. The sharp separation between the two types of problem sets emphasizes the limited relevance of game theory as a tool for making predictions and giving advice. The paper summarizes the results of 41 experiments which were conducted during the course. It is argued that the crude experimental methods produced results which are not substantially different from those obtained at much higher cost using stricter experimental methods