introduce

In game theory economics, "smart pig game" is a famous example of Nash equilibrium. Suppose there is a big pig and a little pig in the pigsty. One end of the pigsty is provided with a pig trough, and the other end is provided with a button for controlling the supply of pig food. Press the button, 65,438+00 units of pig food will enter the trough, but whoever presses the button will pay the cost of 2 units first. If the big pig reaches the trough first, the profit ratio of big pig to food is 9: 65,438+0. At the same time, the income ratio is 7 ∶ 3; Piglets arrive at the trough first, and the income ratio is 6∶4. Then, under the premise that both pigs are wise, the final result is that the little pig chooses to wait.

In fact, the pig chooses to wait and let the big pig press the control button, but the reason why he chooses to "take a boat" (or hitchhike) is very simple: if the big pig chooses to act and the pig also acts, the pig can get a net income of 1 unit (it takes 2 units to eat 3 units of food, and the calculation method of net income is the same below), while if the pig waits, it can get a net income of 4 units. On the premise that the big pig chooses to wait, if the little pig acts, the income of the little pig will not cover the cost, and the net income is-1 unit. If the pig also chooses to wait, the benefit of the pig is zero and the cost is zero. In a word, waiting is better than action. The reward matrix in game theory can be used to describe the choice of piglets more clearly:

It can be seen from the matrix that when the big pig chooses to act, if the little pig acts, its income is 1, and if the little pig waits, its income is 4, so the little pig chooses to wait; When the big pig chooses to wait, if the little pig acts, its income is-1, and if the little pig waits, its income is 0, so the little pig also chooses to wait. On the whole, whether the big pig chooses to act or wait, the choice of the little pig will be waiting, that is, waiting is the dominant strategy of the little pig.

In the management of small enterprises, learning how to "hitchhike" is the most basic quality of a shrewd professional manager. At some point, it is wise to wait and let other big enterprises explore the market first. At this time, you can do something without doing it!

Smart managers are good at using various favorable conditions to serve themselves. "Hitchhiking" is actually another choice for professional managers to face every expense. Paying attention to and studying it can save a lot of unnecessary expenses for enterprises, thus making the management and development of enterprises go to a new level. This phenomenon is very common in economic life, but managers of small enterprises are rarely familiar with it.

Game and system: the enlightenment of intelligent pig game

In this example, for pigs, no matter whether the big pig steps on the pedal or not, it is better not to step on it. On the other hand, the big pig knows that the little pig can't pedal, but it's better to pedal than not to pedal, so he has to do it himself. This case makes us think-

Games and systems

The story of "Smart Pig Game" encourages the weak (pigs) in the competition to wait for the best strategy. In the game, each side should try its best to attack the other side, protect itself and finally win; But at the same time, the other person is also a rational person like you. Would he do that? At this time, you need better wisdom. The game is actually a battle of wits. Game theory, as a science, is a study of the interaction between different disciplines. Or, to be precise, game theory is to study the decision-making and the equilibrium of this decision-making when the behaviors of decision-makers interact directly, so some people call it "game theory".

For business operators, how to understand game theory and how to use the principles of game theory to guide the effective management of enterprises is something worth thinking about. Game theory is a very effective decision-making tool for business operators, or at least a scientific decision-making idea, in many aspects, such as price and output decision-making, economic cooperation and economic and trade negotiations, introduction and development of new technologies or new products, participation in bidding and auction, handling labor relations, and relations and cooperation with the government.

There is also a classic case, that is, the British government handed over prisoners exiled to Australia to merchant ships traveling between Australia, often because the owners or sailors of merchant ships abused prisoners, resulting in a large number of exiles dying on the way (buried in the sea). Later, the British Empire slightly changed the method (system) of transporting prisoners. Exiles are still transported by merchant ships to and from Australia, but the cost of transporting prisoners is not paid by the government to merchant ships until the prisoners are sent to Australia. With such a small "change", almost no prisoner will die halfway.

On this issue, Mr. Qin Xiao, the current director of China Merchants, also talked about some views when he was a guest on CCTV's Dialogue program recently. He believes that business leaders should make rules of the game, not just referees. He believes that the system should be more important than the authority and charm of the individual. Comrade Xiaoping once said that a good system can restrain the bad guys; A bad system will make good people bad. Looking back at history, we always talk about what it would be like to win the Nobel Prize and what Edison invented, but few people talk about the contribution of insurance system and patent system to social progress. As a result, it raises another new question-

System and culture

In the study of corporate culture, people's understanding of "culture and system" often falls into a misunderstanding: they are either opposite or confused, and they can't distinguish their position and role in corporate management. Some people summarize corporate culture into three levels: material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture. This broad definition of corporate culture undoubtedly includes institutions, that is, institutions are also a kind of culture. But if we study enterprises from a narrow perspective.

Industry culture and system are just a carrier of culture. System and culture belong to two different management levels and two different management methods. Cultural management is higher than institutional management. The system emphasizes external supervision and control, which is the "cultural bottom line" advocated by enterprises, that is, what employees must do; Culture, on the other hand, emphasizes values, ideals, beliefs and moral strength, and emphasizes internal consciousness and self-discipline, which is a "higher cultural realm".

System and culture are interactive. When a manager thinks that a certain culture needs to be promoted, he may promote and spread it by cultivating typical forms or carrying out activities. But the system is one of the best carriers to infiltrate the advocated new culture into the management process and transform it into people's conscious action. The quality of culture or the degree of recognition of mainstream culture determines the cost of the system. When the excellent culture advocated by the enterprise is highly recognized with the mainstream culture, the institutional cost of the enterprise is low; When the cultural adaptability advocated by enterprises is poor and the recognition of mainstream culture is low, the institutional cost of enterprises is high. Because the system is an external constraint, when the institutional culture has not yet formed, employees may "deviate" or not do as required without supervision, and the cost is naturally high; When the institutional culture is formed and people consciously engage in work, the institutional cost will be greatly reduced, especially when the culture outside the system is formed, the institutional cost will be lower. Corporate institutional culture is an important part of corporate culture, and institutional culture is the foundation and carrier of spiritual culture, which has a negative effect on corporate spiritual culture. The establishment of a certain enterprise mechanism affects people's choice of new values and becomes the basis of new spiritual culture. Corporate culture always develops, enriches and perfects along the track of spiritual culture-institutional culture-new spiritual culture. The institutional culture of enterprises is also the guarantee for the implementation of corporate behavior culture. How to build a behavior culture directly related to the production, study, entertainment and life of employees in enterprises, whether the business style of enterprises is dynamic and rigorous, whether the mental outlook is high, whether the interpersonal relationship is harmonious, and whether the civilization level of employees is improved are all related to the guarantee function of institutional culture. Therefore, the management system of excellent corporate culture must be the embodiment of scientific, perfect and practical management methods.

In this case, some people think that whether the management of an enterprise is perfect or not should be measured by how many systems it has. The more rules and regulations, the more perfect enterprise management, the more development potential. Some people even think that enterprise management

It is best not to have management art, as long as the enterprise management system is perfect, the enterprise will put an end to all possible mistakes, which is the realm pursued by enterprise management 2. Can the system really solve everything? Let's look at two examples first. As one of the most standardized and efficient markets in the world, American capital market has always been regarded as the learning object of other markets. However, in recent years, a series of scandals have been exposed frequently, including Enron, WorldCom and the fraudulent behavior of Wall Street intermediaries, which cannot but make us reflect. The United States has the best enterprise system in the world, a strong supervision mechanism and a perfect legal system. Why did the system fail? At this time, we have to study-

Rule of law and culture

As the main body of creating value in the market economy, enterprises need games and rules in their activities. Managing enterprises according to law is an inevitable choice for the development of market economy. The earliest market economy in history is indeed a completely free economy, and the government only acts as a "night watchman" of the market. However, after experiencing the hardships of "free competition", western developed countries deeply feel that the economy lacking the rule of law is "free", but the price paid is too high, so they invariably choose the economic rule of law in order to guide, standardize and restrict Adam Smith's "invisible hand" with the help of the power of the rule of law. As an institutional way, the existence value of law lies in intervening in society and regulating internal relations. However, it is precisely because of such a problem-solving oriented discipline that law has absorbed a large number of research methods to observe the world and fed back to other disciplines with colorful forms of expression. Judging from the research results of disciplines, the core theme of both law and economics is system. Because the problem of social science is nothing more than how to standardize the empirical theory that describes how the society exists and operates, and the combination of the two has all kinds of so-called "transforming the world" policy propositions and system construction. In this way, the market game has become the best combination of law and economy. A legal rule will derive a set of rules of the game, and signing a contract means entering a game.

But everyone knows that no legal system can cure all diseases. Only by correctly understanding the connotation of the legal system can we not fall into the trap of the system. Similarly, as one of the formal systems, enterprise management rules and regulations should use "he"

Law "to regulate the behavior of employees, its role is obvious, is a dominant system. However, it is not enough for enterprises to have rules and regulations. There is a gap in management loopholes outside the formal system, which needs another system to cooperate, that is, corporate culture. According to the new institutional economics, institutions include formal institutions and informal institutions. Formal system refers to a series of policies and regulations created by people consciously, including political and economic systems and hierarchical structure composed of these rules. Specific to the enterprise refers to the property rights system, governance structure, organizational structure and rules and regulations of the enterprise. Informal system refers to a part of culture that people have formed in long-term communication and passed down from generation to generation. For enterprises, it mainly refers to corporate culture. If the enterprise management system is to make people who want to commit crimes have no chance to commit crimes, then the enterprise culture is to make people who have the opportunity to commit crimes unwilling to commit crimes! We emphasize that there is nothing wrong with managing enterprises according to law, because our enterprises still have a lot of colors of managing people, and they have not yet been in line with the real market economy. But it is emphasized that if we rely too much, it means that with laws and systems, we have everything. In this sense, I am afraid it is biased. Undoubtedly, corporate culture is the latest achievement of the successful application of "people-oriented" thought in enterprise management. It is emphasized here that enterprise management should organically combine the formal system with the informal system, in other words, it is to promote the construction of enterprise culture while grasping the rule of law; At the same time, through the construction of corporate culture, the rule of law in enterprises will be further realized.

To sum up, corporate culture is the culture of entrepreneurs in a sense. However, as the implementers of corporate culture construction, party organizations and working organs in enterprises can't just talk about cultural construction on the theoretical level. If we can take system construction and rule of law construction as the starting point of our work, and constantly increase the intensity of corporate culture construction, it will not only play a role of "blowing rice from chaff", but also provide a solid and reliable guarantee for corporate culture construction.

Nash equilibrium

printing block

Nash equilipium, also known as non-cooperative game equilibrium, is an important term in game theory, named after johnf nash.

Directory [Hidden] Nash Equilibrium Name Source and Introduction: Nash Equilibrium Definition: Nash Equilibrium Classic Case: Nash Equilibrium's Important Influence in Prisoner's Dilemma

Nash Biography: The Ghost of Princeton

The origin and introduction of Nash equilibrium;

Johnf nash entered Princeton University as a young doctoral student in mathematics from 65438 to 0948. His research results can be found in his doctoral thesis Non-cooperative Game (1950). This doctoral thesis leads to the equilibrium point of n-person game (19

50) and published two papers, Non-cooperative Game (195 1). Nash introduced the difference between cooperative game and non-cooperative game in the above paper. His most important contribution to non-cooperative games is to define a general solution concept that includes any number of people and any preference, that is, it is not limited to two-person zero-sum games. The concept of this solution was later called Nash equilibrium.

Nash equilibrium definition:

Suppose there are n players in the game, and given the strategies of others, each person chooses his own optimal strategy (the individual optimal strategy may or may not depend on the strategies of others) to maximize his own interests. All players' strategies form a strategy profile. Nash equilibrium refers to this.

The strategic combination consists of the optimal strategies of all participants. That is, given other people's strategies, no one has enough reason to break this equilibrium. Nash equilibrium is essentially a non-cooperative game state.

A Classic Case of Nash Equilibrium: Prisoner's Dilemma

(1950, mathematician Tucker is a visiting professor at Stanford University. When giving a speech to some psychologists, he told the story of two prisoners. )

Suppose two thieves, A and B, commit a crime together, enter the house privately and are caught by the police. The police put the two men in two different rooms for interrogation. For each suspect, the policy given by the police is that if a suspect confessed his crime and handed over the stolen goods, the evidence was conclusive and both of them were convicted. If another suspect also confessed, they were each sentenced to eight years in prison; If another suspect denies it without confession, he will be sentenced to two years in prison for obstructing official duties (because there is evidence to prove that he is guilty), and the confessor will be released immediately after eight years of commutation. If both of them deny it, the police can't convict them of theft because of insufficient evidence, but they can each be sentenced to 1 year in prison for trespassing. Table 2.2 shows the payoff matrix of this game.

Table 2.2 Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Regarding the case, it is obvious that the best strategy is that both sides deny it, and as a result, everyone only sentenced 1 year. However, due to the isolation of two people, first of all, from a psychological point of view, both sides will suspect that the other party will betray themselves in order to protect themselves. Secondly, Adam Smith's theory assumes that everyone is a "rational economic man" and will

Choose from the purpose of self-interest. These two people will have such a calculation process: if he confesses, I will deny it, I will go to jail 10 years, and the confession will be 8 years at most; If he denies it, I can be released, and he will go to jail 10 years. Considering the above situation, whether he confesses or not, it is cost-effective for me to confess. Both of them can use such a brain. In the end, both of them chose to confess and were sentenced to eight years in prison.

Based on the premise of rational agent in economics, the two prisoners' choice in their respective interests is to confess, and if they don't confess, they will be released, and the strategy that was originally beneficial to both sides will not appear. In this way, both of them chose the confession strategy and were sentenced to eight years in prison. Nash equilibrium first challenges Adam Smith's "invisible hand" principle: according to Smith's theory, in the market economy, everyone starts from the purpose of self-interest, and finally the whole society achieves the effect of altruism. However, we can draw a paradox of the principle of "invisible hand" from Nash equilibrium: starting from self-interest, the result will be to harm others and not benefit ourselves.

The important influence of Nash equilibrium

Nash equilibrium theory has laid the fundamental foundation of modern mainstream game theory and economic theory. As Crepps (1990) said in Introduction to Game Theory and Economic Modeling, "In the past two or three decades, economics has experienced a moderate revolution in methodology, language and concepts, and non-cooperative game theory has become the center of the paradigm ... The important influence of Nash equilibrium can be summarized as the following six aspects.

(1) changed the system and structure of economics. The concept, content, model and analytical tools of non-cooperative game theory have penetrated into most disciplines of economics, such as microeconomics, macroeconomics, labor economics, international economics, environmental economics, etc., and changed the content and structure of these disciplines, becoming the basic research paradigm and theoretical analysis tools of these disciplines, thus changing the connotation of each branch of the original economic theoretical system.

(2) Expand the scope of economics to study economic problems. Primitive economics lacks effective methods to model uncertain factors, changing environmental factors and the interaction between economic individuals, so it is impossible to dissect and analyze economic problems at the micro level. Nash equilibrium and related model analysis methods, including extended game method, backward induction method, sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium and other conceptual methods, provide economists with in-depth analysis tools.

(3) Strengthened the depth of economic research. Nash equilibrium theory does not avoid the direct interaction between economic individuals, nor is it satisfied with the simplification of complex economic relations between economic individuals. When analyzing problems, we should not only stay at the macro level, but also deeply analyze the deep-seated reasons and laws behind the appearance, emphasizing the discovery of the root causes of problems from the perspective of micro-individual behavior laws, so as to understand and explain economic problems more deeply and accurately.

(4) A research paradigm system based on classical game is formed. That is to say, we can classify various problems or economic relations according to the types or characteristics of classical games, and study them according to the corresponding analysis methods and models of classical games, so as to transplant the experience gained in one field to another conveniently.

(5) The relationship between economics and other social sciences and natural sciences has been expanded and strengthened. Nash equilibrium is great because it is ordinary, and it is almost everywhere. Nash equilibrium theory is not only applicable to the law of human behavior, but also to the law of survival, movement and development of other creatures other than human beings. The bridge function of Nash equilibrium and game theory makes economics more closely linked with other social sciences and natural sciences, forming a virtuous circle of mutual promotion between economics and other disciplines.

(6) changed the language and expression of economics. Kandori (1997), who is quite accomplished in evolutionary game theory, once made a humorous extension of paul samuelson's famous saying, "You can even turn a parrot into a trained economist because it only needs to learn two words, that is,' supply' and' demand'." He said, "Now this parrot needs it.