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Most of current economic models center on markets, possibly perfectly competitive, and the price mechanism as coordinating devices of individual decisions. Casual observation suggests that most of this task is actually carried out by personalized relationships and long term commitments that allow cooperation to be supported as a Nash, non-cooperative equilibrium in appropriate conditions. They work as a substitute absent future markets and as risk sharing devices. Some applications to the study of labor markets and firms are outlined. Gran parte dei modelli teorici correnti si focalizzano sui mercati, possibilmente di concorrenza perfetta, ed il meccanismo dei prezzi come strumenti di coordinamento delle decisioni individuali. Anche una superficiale osservazione della realtà suggerisce che in questo hanno un ruolo molto importante le relazioni personalizzate e gli impegni a lungo termine che, appropriatamente disegnati, permettono di raggiungere cooperazione come equilibrio non cooperativo di Nash. Esse funzionano da sostituto di mercati futuri assenti e di condivisione del rischio. Alcune applicazioni allo studio del mercato del lavoro e all’analisi dell’impresa sono sommariamente tratteggiate.

Starting with a prisoner’s dilemma, a simple taxonomy of the possible characteristics of a game is introduced. This forms the basis for discussing repeated interactions and the emergence of personalised rules used in durable relationships. When by their nature, interactions are sporadic, much of the same results can be obtained by the use of social rules. Finally, the use of formal contracts, typically incomplete, and a third party to solve conflicts is outlined. The Appendix contains a summary introduction to the problem of incompleteness of norm systems.

The paper tries to show how basically similar institutional settings produce very different results in different conditions, how institutions evolved to solve new problems and exploit new possibilities as the economic setting changed in time, the problems these innovations raised and the different ways one tried for solving them. Simple adoption of the institutions which characterize advanced economies is unlikely to be a sound path for developing economies coming from very different histories.

The concept of a repeated game is introduced and applied to the case of the centipede, the finite and the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma. The consequences of the assumption of common knowledge of rationality are outlined. A concept of reasonableness is introduced and some of its effects are discussed.

It gives an informal definition of the main elements of a game: the set of players, the concept of a move and of a strategy, the normal and the extended form, a first introduction to the description of information, the set of results that can be reached and the value each player attaches to a result.

After introducing the binary relation of domination and its properties, one defines the concept of non dominated strategies and some conditions for their existence, the concept of solution of a game, that of rationalizability, that of best reply and the concept of non cooperative Nash equilibrium

After a summary introduction to the concept of a game, it presents some of the examples more often used in the literature (head and tail, peaches and bees, traffic light, prisoner’s dilemma, battle of the sexes and stag hunt games) with a brief discussion of the different situations and problems they portray.

A simple proof of existence of a non cooperative Nash equilibrium is briefly discussed, together with an introduction to the problems arising from its uniqueness or non uniqueness, to the properties which can be ascribed to an equilibrium and those connected with the search for an equilibrium.

Nelle discussioni sul come gestire il dopoguerra, le possibili radici economiche del secondo conflitto, l’esistenza di contrasti di interesse e della lotta per la conquista di mercati con strumenti sfortunatamente diversi da quelli economici, hanno quasi certamente avuto un ruolo importante. L’impressione è che si sia pensato di creare condizioni che evitassero il ripresentarsi degli stessi fenomeni attraverso la spinta all’apertura dei mercati e l’adozione del libero scambio, seguendo peraltro la visione prevalente nell’ambito della teoria del commercio internazionale, forse senza dare adeguato peso al fatto che avevano la loro origine nelle caratteristiche degli assetti produttivi industriali dei vari paesi, nella struttura degli incentivi che questi generavano e inducevano a controllare e “promuovere” gli scambi.

Making use of and following substantive rationality is a costly and not always feasible option. In games, this option generates two levels of reasoning. The player has to decide how to play the overt game, but this requires him to decide how to play an underlying game in which the alternatives are to follow either substantive rationality or a different rule, here that of reasonableness, in playing the overt game. A strategy is reasonable if coupled with its best response it results in the player that adopts it achieving the highest payoff among those dominating the Nash equilibria of the overt game. The underlying game can have more than one equilibrium. Substantive rationality in the underlying game can justify behaviour which is at odds with substantively rational behaviour in the overt game. The case of the centipede is used as an example. Key words: Common knowledge, Rationality, Backward induction, Reasonableness, Incomplete information, Centipede game.

Nel processo di trasformazione dall’assetto feudale a quello moderno, i conflitti tra stati mettono in evidenza l’importanza degli incentivi a fare, ad usare nella maniera più efficiente le risorse di cui un paese dispone. Ma questi incentivi operano essenzialmente a livello individuale o di unità famigliari ed introdurli porta ad un ampliamento della sfera di autonomia riconosciuta e attribuita al singolo, su cui gli viene riconosciuto potere ma anche responsabilità di decisione.

Lo sviluppo di imprese a forte impatto sociale e ambientale costituisce una leva fondamentale per lo sviluppo integrale per le aree più povere del pianeta.Dopo una classificazione dei vari modelli di social enterprise si analizzano le diverse iniziative poste in essere da istituzioni pubbliche, università e centri di ricerca e fondazioni per favorire il lancio e lo sviluppo di nuovi social business.