On maximizing the average time at a goal

In a decision process (gambling or dynamic programming problem) with finite state space and arbitrary decision sets (gambles or actions), there is always available a Markov strategy which uniformly (nearly) maximizes the average time spent at a goal. If the decision sets are closed, there is even a stationary strategy with the same property.Examples are given to show that approximations by discounted or finite horizon payoffs are not useful for the general average reward problem.     

Onset of limit cycles in population games with attractiveness driven strategy choice

We consider population games in which players are motivated in their choice of strategies by payoffs, popularity and transcendent factors. The dynamics of players is governed by balance conservation equations, with attractiveness driven strategy choice. We demonstrate that the increase of the attractiveness of strategy does not necessarily lead to the increase of its frequency in the population in the long run. In particular we discover the existence of limit cycles in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma and in the Rock-Paper-Scissors games in such populations.     

Surplus efficiency of ex ante investments in matching markets with nontransferabilities

Does a competitive equilibrium in a matching market provide adequate incentives for investments made before the market when utility is not perfectly transferable? In a one-sided market with a continuum of agents and finite types there is a constrained surplus efficient equilibrium, when a social planner can only affect investments but not payoffs nor matches, if an equal treatment property holds in equilibrium. Sufficient (but not full) utility transferability in a well defined sense implies this property. Ex post efficiency of payoffs (i.e., individual payoffs maximize the surplus in each match) alone is not sufficient to ensure that equilibrium investments maximize aggregate surplus.     

Sustainable cooperation in multicriteria multistage games

We use the imputation distribution procedure approach to ensure sustainable cooperation in a multistage game with vector payoffs. In order to choose a particular Pareto optimal and time consistent strategy profile and the corresponding cooperative trajectory we suggest a refined leximin algorithm. Using this algorithm we design a characteristic function for a multistage multicriteria game. Furthermore, we provide sufficient conditions for strong time consistency of the core.     

Zones of cooperation in demographic prisoner's dilemma

The emergence of cooperation in prisoner's dilemma (PD) games is generally assumed to require repeated play (and strategies such as Tit for Tat, involving memory of previous interactions) or features (“tags”) permitting cooperators and defectors to distinguish one another. In the demographic PD, neither assumption is made: Agents with finite vision move to random sites on a lattice and play a fixed culturally-inherited zero-memory strategy of cooperate (C) or defect (D) against neighbors. Agents are indistinguishable to one another—they are “tagless.” Positive payoffs accrue to agents playing C against C, or D against C. Negative payoffs accrue to agents playing C against D, or D against D. Payoffs accumulate. If accumulated payoffs exceed some threshold, agents clone offspring of the same strategy onto neighboring sites and continue play. If accumulated payoffs are negative, agents die and are removed. Spatial zones of cooperation emerge. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Dynamics of individual specialization and global diversification in communities

We discuss a model of an economic community consisting of N interacting agents. The state of each agent at any time is characterized, in general, by a mixed strategy profile drawn from a space of s pure strategies. The community evolves as agents update their strategy profiles in response to payoffs received from other agents. The evolution equation is a generalization of the replicator equation. We argue that when N is sufficiently large and the payoff matrix elements satisfy suitable inequalities, the community evolves to retain the full diversity of available strategies even as individual agents specialize to pure strategies. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Variational inequality formulation for the games with random payoffs

We consider an n-player non-cooperative game with random payoffs and continuous strategy set for each player. The random payoffs of each player are defined using a finite dimensional random vector. We formulate this problem as a chance-constrained game by defining the payoff function of each player using a chance constraint. We first consider the case where the continuous strategy set of each player does not depend on the strategies of other players. If a random vector defining the payoffs of each player follows a multivariate elliptically symmetric distribution, we show that there exists a Nash equilibrium. We characterize the set of Nash equilibria using the solution set of a variational inequality (VI) problem. Next, we consider the case where the continuous strategy set of each player is defined by a shared constraint set. In this case, we show that there exists a generalized Nash equilibrium for elliptically symmetric distributed payoffs. Under certain conditions, we characterize the set of a generalized Nash equilibria using the solution set of a VI problem. As an application, the random payoff games arising from electricity market are studied under chance-constrained game framework.     

The evolution of cooperation in spatial groups

Much of human cooperation remains an evolutionary riddle. There is evidence that individuals are often organized into groups in many social situations. Inspired by this observation, we propose a simple model of evolutionary public goods games in which individuals are organized into networked groups. Here, nodes in the network represent groups; the edges, connecting the nodes, refer to the interactions between the groups. Individuals establish public goods games with partners in the same group and migrate among neighboring groups depending on their payoffs and expectations. We show that the paradigmatic public goods social dilemma can be resolved and high cooperation levels are attained in structured groups, even in relatively harsh conditions for cooperation. Further, by means of numerical simulations and mean-field analysis, we arrive at the result: larger average group size and milder cooperation environment would lead to lower cooperation level but higher average payoffs of the entire population. Altogether, these results emphasize that our understanding of cooperation can be enhanced by investigations of how spatial groups of individuals affect the evolution dynamics, which might help in explaining the emergence and evolution of cooperation.     

Incorporating the information from direct and indirect neighbors into fitness evaluation enhances the cooperation in the social dilemmas

We propose an improved fitness evaluation method to investigate the evolution of cooperation in the spatial social dilemmas. In our model, a focal player’s fitness is calculated as the linear combination of his own payoff, the average payoffs of direct and indirect neighbors in which two independent selection parameters (α and β) are used to control the proportion of various payoff contribution to the current fitness. Then, the fitness-based strategy update rule is still Fermi-like, and asynchronous update is adopted here. A large plethora of numerical simulations are performed to validate the behaviors of the current model, and the results unambiguously demonstrate that the cooperation level is greatly enhanced by introducing the payoffs from the surrounding players. In particular, the influence of direct neighbors become more evident when compared with indirect neighbors since the correlation between focal players and their direct neighbors is much closer. Current outcomes are significant for us to further illustrate the origin and emergence of cooperation within a wide variety of natural and man-made systems.     

Correlated equilibrium and potential games

Any correlated equilibrium of a strategic game with bounded payoffs and convex strategy sets which has a smooth concave potential, is a mixture of pure strategy profiles which maximize the potential. If moreover, the strategy sets are compact and the potential is strictly concave, then the game has a unique correlated equilibrium.     

演化博弈视角下军民融合协同创新合作稳定性分析

协同创新是实施军民融合深度发展战略的重要基础和内在动力。军民融合协同创新跨越军地,针对军民融合协同创新的合作后续稳定性问题,基于演化博弈理论,构建了有限理性下以军工企业和民用企业为参与主体的协同创新演化博弈模型,分析系统长期演化的结果与影响合作稳定性的因素,并用Matlab进行数值仿真。研究表明,军民融合协同创新合作稳定性与双方合作收益、违约金、政府激励正相关,与基本收益、研发成本、信息沟通成本、技术二次转化成本、风险成本、背叛收益负相关,存在合理的收益分配系数有利于合作稳定性,同时给出了政府激励力度的基础标准。最后,为提高合作稳定性提出针对性建议。     

Scarcity,competition, and value

We suggest a value for finite coalitional games with transferable utility that are enriched by non-negative weights for the players. In contrast to other weighted values, players stand for types of agents and weights are intended to represent the population sizes of these types. Therefore, weights do not only affect individual payoffs but also the joint payoff. Two principles guide the behavior of this value. Scarcity: the generation of worth is restricted by the scarcest type. Competition: only scarce types are rewarded. We find that the types’ payoffs for this value coincide with the payoffs assigned by the Mertens value to their type populations in an associated infinite game.     

Transfers,contracts and strategic games

This paper analyses the role of transfer payments and strategic contracting within two-person strategic form games with monetary payoffs. First, it introduces the notion of transfer equilibrium as a strategy combination for which individual stability can be supported by allowing the possibility of transfers of the induced payoffs. Clearly, Nash equilibria are transfer equilibria, but under common regularity conditions the reverse is also true. This result typically does not hold for finite games without the possibility of randomisation, and transfer equilibria for this particular class are studied in some detail.     

Modifications of the Hurwicz’s decision rule

The Hurwicz’s criterion is one of the classical decision rules applied in decision making under uncertainty as a tool enabling to find an optimal pure strategy both for interval and scenarios uncertainty. The interval uncertainty occurs when the decision maker knows the range of payoffs for each alternative and all values belonging to this interval are theoretically probable (the distribution of payoffs is continuous). The scenarios uncertainty takes place when the result of a decision depends on the state of nature that will finally occur and the number of possible states of nature is known and limited (the distribution of payoffs is discrete). In some specific cases the use of the Hurwicz’s criterion in the scenarios uncertainty may lead to quite illogical and unexpected results. Therefore, the author presents two new procedures combining the Hurwicz’s pessimism-optimism index with the Laplace’s approach and using an additional parameter allowing to set an appropriate width for the ranges of relatively good and bad payoffs related to a given decision. The author demonstrates both methods on the basis of an example concerning the choice of an investment project. The methods described may be used in each decision making process within which each alternative (decision, strategy) is characterized by only one criterion (or one synthetic measure).     

复杂产业网络上的技术创新博弈扩散研究

创新的价值在于扩散,但扩散依赖于路径选择与扩散规则.提出了技术创新扩散的一对多博弈模型,并求解出了Nash均衡解.Nash均衡表明,传播者采取扩散策略的概率与学习者的学习成本和拒绝代价之差成正比;学习者采取学习策略的概率不但与传播者的封锁成本成正比,而且与网络的平均度成正比;进而,基于马尔科夫链的吸收态,进一步分析了产业网络上技术创新博弈扩散的平均步数;基于平均场理论,分析了产业网络上技术创新博弈扩散的分布及其分布密度.最后,通过长三角IC产业网络给出了实证分析.     

Pure strategy Nash equilibria and the probabilistic prospects of Stackelberg players

We consider the set of all m×n bimatrix games with ordinal payoffs. We show that on the subset E of such games possessing at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium, both players prefer the role of leader to that of follower in the corresponding Stackelberg games. This preference is in the sense of first-degree stochastic dominance by leader payoffs of follower payoffs. It follows easily that on the complement of E, the follower’s role is preferred in the same sense. Thus we see a tendency for leadership preference to obtain in the presence of multiple pure strategy Nash equilibria in the underlying game.     

Nonzero-sum differential games with bargaining solutions

Nash's bargaining solution for finite games is extended to differential games with nonzero-sum integral payoffs. Sufficient conditions for the optimality of a strategy pair are established. An example is given.     

Approachability in infinite dimensional spaces

The approachability theorem of Blackwell (1956b) is extended to infinite dimensional spaces. Two players play a sequential game whose payoffs are random variables. A set C of random variables is said to be approachable by player 1 if he has a strategy that ensures that the difference between the average payoff and its closest point in C, almost surely converges to zero. Necessary conditions for a set to be approachable are presented. Received February 2002/Final version July 2002  I acknowledge Eilon Solan for his helpful comments. The author acknowledges the support of the Israel Science Foundation, grant no. 178/99.     

A Strong Anti-Folk Theorem

We study the properties of finitely complex, symmetric, globally stable, and semi-perfect equilibria. We show that: (1) If a strategy satisfies these properties then players play a Nash equilibrium of the stage game in every period; (2) The set of finitely complex, symmetric, globally stable, semi-perfect equilibrium payoffs in the repeated game equals the set of Nash equilibria payoffs in the stage game; and (3) A strategy vector satisfies these properties in a Pareto optimal way if and only if players play some Pareto optimal Nash equilibrium of the stage game in every stage. Our second main result is a strong anti-Folk Theorem, since, in contrast to what is described by the Folk Theorem, the set of equilibrium payoffs does not expand when the game is repeated.This paper is a revised version of Chapter 3 of my Ph.D. thesis, which has circulated under the title “An Interpretation of Nash Equilibrium Based on the Notion of Social Institutions”.     

Inequity aversion in a joint economic lot sizing environment with asymmetric holding cost information

Screening contracts (or ‘menu of contracts’) are frequently used for aligning the incentives in supply chains with private information. In this context, it is assumed that all supply chain parties are strictly (expected) profit-maximizing. However, previous empirical work shows that this is a critical assumption. In fact, it seems that inequity adverse subjects are willing to invest money for achieving higher relative payoffs. Interestingly, the classical approach to design incentive compatible mechanisms gives the agent cheap leeway to increase relative pecuniary payoffs and thereby achieving more equitable profit allocations, because the agent is left (almost) indifferent between two contract alternatives. In other words, we argue (and actually observe in laboratory experiments) that this classical approach of contract design allows the agent to achieve more equitable outcomes at low cost. Since the agent’s better relative performance solely stems from reducing the principal’s payoffs, we observe a substantial negative impact on the overall supply chain performance. The present work relaxes the assumption of the profit-maximizing buyer (agent) in a serial supply chain for a lot sizing framework with asymmetrically distributed holding cost information and deterministic end-customer demand. The study provides researchers and managers an approach on how to account for disadvantageous inequity aversion (ie, the agent suffers from profits being lower than the principals profits) by designing a contract that anticipates such behaviour while providing a solution method for the resulting non-linear mathematical program. We denote the resulting contract as ‘behavioural robust’, since it limits the inefficiency losses that result if agents exhibit disadvantageous inequity aversion instead of being strictly profit-maximizing. A numerical study compares the advantages of the ‘behavioural robust’ contract against the classical screening contract. The results highlight that supply chain performance losses can be substantially reduced under the behavioural robust contract.