The World of Game Theory and Game Theory of the World: A Personal Journey

Text of the author’s talk at the colloquium held in his honor on October 11, 2021, at the University Paris–Panthéon–Assas, to mark his receipt on the next day of a doctorate honoris causa granted by the same university. After thanking the initiators and organizers of the event, and paying homage to the great figures of game theory who have passed away, the author describes his “personal journey” in Science. The leitmotif, illustrated by his undergraduate studies, his doctoral dissertation, and his subsequent work in game theory, is that pure and applied science are ultimately one and the same. This is illustrated, inter alia, by the relationship between game theory (GT) and behavioral economics (BE): it is argued that BE’s supposedly irrational heuristics and biases almost always lead to behavior that accords well with GT’s rational analysis.