On the existence of almost-pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-person finite games

This paper gives wide characterization of n-person non-coalitional games with finite players’ strategy spaces and payoff functions having some concavity or convexity properties. The characterization is done in terms of the existence of two-point-strategy Nash equilibria, that is equilibria consisting only of mixed strategies with supports being one or two-point sets of players’ pure strategy spaces. The structure of such simple equilibria is discussed in different cases. The results obtained in the paper can be seen as a discrete counterpart of Glicksberg’s theorem and other known results about the existence of pure (or “almost pure”) Nash equilibria in continuous concave (convex) games with compact convex spaces of players’ pure strategies.     

Nonzero-sum non-stationary discounted Markov game model

The goal of this paper is provide a theory of K-person non-stationary Markov games with unbounded rewards, for a countable state space and action spaces. We investigate both the finite and infinite horizon problems. We define the concept of strong Nash equilibrium and present conditions for both problems for which strong Nash or Nash equilibrium strategies exist for all players within the Markov strategies, and show that the rewards in equilibrium satisfy the optimality equations.     

Optimal Stopping with Information Constraint

We present a discrete n-person model of a dynamic strategic market game. We show that for some values of the discount factor the game possesses a stationary equilibrium where all the players make high bids. Within the class of all the high-bidding strategies we distinguish between two classes of more and less aggressive ones. We show that the set of discount factors for which these more aggressive strategies form equilibria shrinks as n goes to infinity. On the other hand, the analogous set for the less aggressive strategies grows to the whole interval (0,1) as n grows to infinity. Further we analyze the properties of the value function corresponding to these high-bidding equilibria. We also give some numerical examples contradicting some other properties that seem intuitive.     

Optimal strategic reasoning with McNaughton functions

The aim of the paper is to explore strategic reasoning in strategic games of two players with an uncountably infinite space of strategies the payoff of which is given by McNaughton functions—functions on the unit interval which are piecewise linear with integer coefficients. McNaughton functions are of a special interest for approximate reasoning as they correspond to formulas of infinitely valued Lukasiewicz logic. The paper is focused on existence and structure of Nash equilibria and algorithms for their computation. Although the existence of mixed strategy equilibria follows from a general theorem (Glicksberg, 1952) [5], nothing is known about their structure neither the theorem provides any method for computing them. The central problem of the article is to characterize the class of strategic games with McNaughton payoffs which have a finitely supported Nash equilibrium. We give a sufficient condition for finite equilibria and we propose an algorithm for recovering the corresponding equilibrium strategies. Our result easily generalizes to n-player strategic games which don't need to be strictly competitive with a payoff functions represented by piecewise linear functions with real coefficients. Our conjecture is that every game with McNaughton payoff allows for finitely supported equilibrium strategies, however we leave proving/disproving of this conjecture for future investigations.     

Structure of equilibria inN-person non-cooperative games

Here we study the structure of Nash equilibrium points forN-person games. For two-person games we observe that exchangeability and convexity of the set of equilibrium points are synonymous. This is shown to be false even for three-person games. For completely mixed games we get the necessary inequality constraints on the number of pure strategies for the players. Whereas the equilibrium point is unique for completely mixed two-person games, we show that it is not true for three-person completely mixed game without some side conditions such as convexity on the equilibrium set. It is a curious fact that for the special three-person completely mixed game with two pure strategies for each player, the equilibrium point is unique; the proof of this involves some combinatorial arguments.     

Semidefinite complementarity reformulation for robust Nash equilibrium problems with Euclidean uncertainty sets

Consider the N-person non-cooperative game in which each player’s cost function and the opponents’ strategies are uncertain. For such an incomplete information game, the new solution concept called a robust Nash equilibrium has attracted much attention over the past several years. The robust Nash equilibrium results from each player’s decision-making based on the robust optimization policy. In this paper, we focus on the robust Nash equilibrium problem in which each player’s cost function is quadratic, and the uncertainty sets for the opponents’ strategies and the cost matrices are represented by means of Euclidean and Frobenius norms, respectively. Then, we show that the robust Nash equilibrium problem can be reformulated as a semidefinite complementarity problem (SDCP), by utilizing the semidefinite programming (SDP) reformulation technique in robust optimization. We also give some numerical example to illustrate the behavior of robust Nash equilibria.     

Stationary perfect equilibria of an n-person noncooperative bargaining game and cooperative solution concepts

This paper characterizes the stationary (subgame) perfect equilibria of an n-person noncooperative bargaining model with characteristic functions, and provides strategic foundations of some cooperative solution concepts such as the core, the bargaining set and the kernel. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we show that a linear programming formulation successfully characterizes the stationary (subgame) perfect equilibria of our bargaining game. We suggest a linear programming formulation as an algorithm for the stationary (subgame) perfect equilibria of a class of n-person noncooperative games. Second, utilizing the linear programming formulation, we show that stationary (subgame) perfect equilibria of n-person noncooperative games provide strategic foundations for the bargaining set and the kernel.     

N-person differential games governed by semilinear stochastic evolution systems

In this paper the problem ofN-person infinite-dimensional stochastic differential games governed by semilinear stochastic evolution control systems is discussed. First the minimax principle which is the necessary condition for the existence of open-loop Nash equilibrium is proved. Then the necessary and sufficient conditions of open-loop and closed-loop Nash equilibrium for linear quadratic infinite-dimensional stochastic differential games are derived.     

Sufficient conditions for Nash equilibria inN-person games over reflexive Banach spaces

Sufficient conditions are obtained for the existence of Nash equilibrium points inN-person games when the strategy sets are closed, convex subsets of reflexive Banach spaces. These conditions require that each player's cost functional is convex in that player's strategy, weakly continuous in the strategies of the other players, weakly lower semicontinuous in all strategies, and furthermore satisfies a coercivity condition if any of the strategy sets is unbounded. The result is applied to a class of linear-quadratic differential games with no information, to prove that equilibrium points exist when the duration of these games is sufficiently small.This work was supported by a Commonwealth of Australia, Postgraduate Research Award.     

A tractable multi-leader multi-follower peak-load-pricing model with strategic interaction

While single-level Nash equilibrium problems are quite well understood nowadays, less is known about multi-leader multi-follower games. However, these have important applications, e.g., in the analysis of electricity and gas markets, where often a limited number of firms interacts on various subsequent markets. In this paper, we consider a special class of two-level multi-leader multi-follower games that can be applied, e.g., to model strategic booking decisions in the European entry-exit gas market. For this nontrivial class of games, we develop a solution algorithm that is able to compute the complete set of Nash equilibria instead of just individual solutions or a bigger set of stationary points. Additionally, we prove that for this class of games, the solution set is finite and provide examples for instances without any Nash equilibria in pure strategies. We apply the algorithm to a case study in which we compute strategic booking and nomination decisions in a model of the European entry-exit gas market system. Finally, we use our algorithm to provide a publicly available test library for the considered class of multi-leader multi-follower games. This library contains problem instances with different economic and mathematical properties so that other researchers in the field can test and benchmark newly developed methods for this challenging class of problems.

     

Coalition-proof equilibria in a voluntary participation game

We examine the coalition-proof equilibria of a participation game in the provision of a (pure) public good. We study which Nash equilibria are achieved through cooperation, and we investigate coalition-proof equilibria under strict and weak domination. We show that under some incentive condition, (i) a profile of strategies is a coalition-proof equilibrium under strict domination if and only if it is a Nash equilibrium that is not strictly Pareto-dominated by any other Nash equilibrium and (ii) every strict Nash equilibrium for non-participants is a coalition-proof equilibrium under weak domination.     

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.     

Computing Nash equilibria through computational intelligence methods

Nash equilibrium constitutes a central solution concept in game theory. The task of detecting the Nash equilibria of a finite strategic game remains a challenging problem up-to-date. This paper investigates the effectiveness of three computational intelligence techniques, namely, covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategies, particle swarm optimization, as well as, differential evolution, to compute Nash equilibria of finite strategic games, as global minima of a real-valued, nonnegative function. An issue of particular interest is to detect more than one Nash equilibria of a game. The performance of the considered computational intelligence methods on this problem is investigated using multistart and deflection.     

Probabilities of Pure Nash Equilibria in Matrix Games when the Payoff Entries of One Player Are Randomly Selected

The Nash equilibrium in pure strategies represents an important solution concept in nonzero sum matrix games. Existence of Nash equilibria in games with known and with randomly selected payoff entries have been studied extensively. In many real games, however, a player may know his own payoff entries but not the payoff entries of the other player. In this paper, we consider nonzero sum matrix games where the payoff entries of one player are known, but the payoff entries of the other player are assumed to be randomly selected. We are interested in determining the probabilities of existence of pure Nash equilibria in such games. We characterize these probabilities by first determining the finite space of ordinal matrix games that corresponds to the infinite space of matrix games with random entries for only one player. We then partition this space into mutually exclusive spaces that correspond to games with no Nash equilibria and with r Nash equilibria. In order to effectively compute the sizes of these spaces, we introduce the concept of top-rated preferences minimal ordinal games. We then present a theorem which provides a mechanism for computing the number of games in each of these mutually exclusive spaces, which then can be used to determine the probabilities. Finally, we summarize the results by deriving the probabilities of existence of unique, nonunique, and no Nash equilibria, and we present an illustrative example.     

Equilibrium points in specialn-person games

The set of Nash equilibria is computed for some generalized games. It is also studied for a subclass of standardn-person games.The authors acknowledge the support of CONICET (Consejo de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas de la Republica Argentina). The first author acknowledges the support from TWAS (Third World Academy of Sciences), Grant No. 86-33.     

Asymptotic Analysis of Linear Feedback Nash Equilibria in Nonzero-Sum Linear-Quadratic Differential Games

In this paper, we discuss nonzero-sum linear-quadratic differential games. For this kind of games, the Nash equilibria for different kinds of information structures were first studied by Starr and Ho. Most of the literature on the topic of nonzero-sum linear-quadratic differential games is concerned with games of fixed, finite duration; i.e., games are studied over a finite time horizon t _f. In this paper, we study the behavior of feedback Nash equilibria for t _f.In the case of memoryless perfect-state information, we study the so-called feedback Nash equilibrium. Contrary to the open-loop case, we note that the coupled Riccati equations for the feedback Nash equilibrium are inherently nonlinear. Therefore, we limit the dynamic analysis to the scalar case. For the special case that all parameters are scalar, a detailed dynamical analysis is given for the quadratic system of coupled Riccati equations. We show that the asymptotic behavior of the solutions of the Riccati equations depends strongly on the specified terminal values. Finally, we show that, although the feedback Nash equilibrium over any fixed finite horizon is generically unique, there can exist several different feedback Nash equilibria in stationary strategies for the infinite-horizon problem, even when we restrict our attention to Nash equilibria that are stable in the dynamical sense.     

On equilibria in finite games

We are concerned with Nash equilibrium points forn-person games. It is proved that, given any real algebraic numberα, there exists a 3-person game with rational data which has a unique equilibrium point andα is the equilibrium payoff for some player. We also present a method which allows us to reduce an arbitraryn-person game to a 3-person one, so that a number of questions about generaln-person games can be reduced to consideration of the special 3-person case. Finally, a completely mixed game, where the equilibrium set is a manifold of dimension one, is constructed.     

Threat bargaining games with a variable population

In this paper we establish links between desirable properties satisfied by familiar solutions to bargaining games with a variable population and the Nash equilibrium concept for threat bargaining games. We introduce three new concepts for equilibrium threat strategies called strategic stability, strategic monotonicity with respect to changes in the number of agents and strategic constancy. Our primary objective in this paper is to show that familiar assumptions satisfied by bargaining games with a variable population yield equilibrium threat strategies which satisfies in a very natural way the concepts we have introduced.     

Evolutionary dynamics may eliminate all strategies used in correlated equilibrium

We show on a 4×4 example that many dynamics may eliminate all strategies used in correlated equilibria, and this for an open set of games. This holds for the best-response dynamics, the Brown–von Neumann–Nash dynamics and any monotonic or weakly sign-preserving dynamics satisfying some standard regularity conditions. For the replicator dynamics and the best-response dynamics, elimination of all strategies used in correlated equilibrium is shown to be robust to the addition of mixed strategies as new pure strategies.     

Characterization of optimal strategies in matrix games with convexity properties

This paper gives a full characterization of matrices with rows and columns having properties closely related to the (quasi-) convexity-concavity of functions. The matrix games described by such payoff matrices well approximate continuous games on the unit square with payoff functions F (x, y) concave in x for each y, and convex in y for each x. It is shown that the optimal strategies in such matrix games have a very simple structure and a search-procedure is given. The results have a very close relationship with the known theorem of Debreu and Glicksberg about the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium in n-person games. Received: May 1997/Final version: August 1999