Trading information is an essential aspect of the negotiations that underpin planning practice across the globe. In this book, Alex Lord uses information economics to outline a way of thinking about these negotiations that places the strategies that actors in the planning game use at the heart of the debate.

Dialogue between economics and planning theorists has been, until now, rare. Lord argues that information economics' tool kit, game theory - including well-known examples such as the Prisoners' Dilemma, the Stag Hunt game and Follow the Leader - offers an analytical framework ideally suited to unpacking planning processes.

This use of game theory to understand how counterparties interact draws together two distinct bodies of literature: firstly the mainstream economics treatment of games in abstract form and, secondly, accounts of actual bargaining in planning practice from a host of international empirical studies.

Providing a novel alternative to existing theories of planning, The Planning Game provides an explanation of how agencies interact in shaping the trajectory of development through the application of game theory to planning practice.

About the Author

Alex Lord worked in the financial services industry before completing a Ph.D. at the University of Manchester's School of Environment and Development. He is currently lecturer in the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool.

Reviews

"The Planning Game will be of interest to planning theorists, and part II especially will be of interest to planning students looking for a different way to make sense of situations that planners face." - Journal of Planning Education and Research, Kieran P. Donaghy, Cornell University

Book Information
ISBN 9780415599061
Author Alex Lord
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 294g