Martin Shubik brings classical oligopoly theory and research in mathematical economics close to new studies in industrial organization and simple game experiments in this imaginative and important new work. He engages the reader by creating a market model and by explaining its availability as a computer program, thus promoting interest in game experiments. In all, he admirably succeeds in increasing our understanding of the meaning of competitive and cooperative behavior and of market structure.

This unusual book covers a variety of topics: economic explanation, model building, analyses of duopoly and oligopoly, product differentiation, contingent demand, demand fluctuations, the study of non-symmetric markets, and advertising. All of these parts of Shubik's overall pattern of interpretation may also be used in a game which, more or less, coincides with the exposition of theory and the subject matter of accounting. A complete linking of basic accounting items to the oligopoly model and theory is made. Shubik bridges the gap between information as it appears to the businessman—the player in the game—and the economic model and abstraction of the market as it appears to the economic theorist.

This book is a fascinating examination of a subject that has enormous consequences but few initiates--the system of military combat simulations and their advocates in defense establishments. The scope and importance of this field may be hinted at each spring during budget debates, but until now no one has made a full public inquiry into the military studies, the analysis system, and the people behind these obscure enterprises.

How did war games come into vogue? Who designs the models that test and measure weapons capabilities--tests whose outcomes their supporters want to use to determine the allocation of millions of dollars, not to mention the deployment of U.S. armaments, around the globe? How are the potential uses of weapons studied when empirical testing is prohibitive or impossible? And what is the state of the war-gaming art and profession?

These are but a few of the crucial questions addressed and answered in this work. The authors interviewed and observed war-gaming professionals in depth, exploring the extent and status of gaming in the defense community and examining these in terms of purpose, means of production, operations, uses, benefits, and costs. Consequently, their book is not simply an analysis but a portrait of the profession. As such, it will serve not only as a blueprint for necessary improvements in the military area but also as the catalyst for future work in diverse areas, since the problems of largescale models examined in a war-game context are now being experienced in such newer fields as energy policy and urban planning.