Robert Aumann

1930– · Israeli-American mathematician

Topics: mathematics

• A person’s behavior is rational if it is in his best interests, given his information.

  — Robert Aumann

• The players in a game are said to be in strategic equilibrium (or simply equilibrium) when their play is mutually optimal: when the actions and plans of each player are rational in the given strategic environment – i.e., when each knows the actions and plans of the others.

  — Robert Aumann

• Repetition acts as an enforcement mechanism: It makes cooperation achievable when it is not achievable in the one-shot game, even when one replaces strategic equilibrium as the criterion for achievability by the more stringent requirement of perfect equilibrium.

  — Robert Aumann