The Economists' Quartet - A Game, not a Theory

In this paper we introduce a new card game called The Economists' Quartet. Its aim is twofold: it is designed to make students interested in the life of contemporary and former economists and their most important ideas, as well as be an entertaining pastime for 'grown-up' post graduate economists. We will describe three different versions of the game, their rules and strategies, and add some interesting parallels to life in the academic world of economists. The first version is a two-person noncooperative game, where the achievements of two economists are compared to each other. The second version is a multiple person game where the players have to collect complete quartets (i.e. set of four economists) by drawing cards from each other. Although every version has its specific advantages, we especially recommend the third version of the game which is a multiple person game with bargaining, where the players have to find corresponding pairs of two economists. This third version of the game is the most demanding one, since winning the game depends largely on knowing much about the economists, their work and ideas. We conclude with some considerations about playing the game and an outlook to future versions of The Economists' Quartet. To avoid misunderstandings, we want to point out that we do not examine any specific economic question here, we just want to provide a card game about economists made by economists for economists.