By the 1980s game theory was considered a strain of economics.

FORBES: What Al Roth Did To Win The Nobel Prize In Economics

The results they are gathering will give them new insights into game theory, that little corner of mathematics where games and economics collide, and which can be found behind everything from corporate bargaining to the 1950s arms race.

FORBES: Microsoft Uses Facebook As Giant 'Lab' To Study Game Theory

But game-theory software can also work well outside the sphere of economics.

ECONOMIST: Modelling behaviour

"He uses very rigorous game theory, " attests MIT economics professor Parag Pathak, the former student of Roth's who worked on the New York City match project.

FORBES: Ideas & Opinions