Extensive-form games and strategic complementarities

I prove the subgame-perfect equivalent of the basic result for Nash equilibria in normal-form games of strategic complements: the set of subgame-perfect equilibria is a nonempty, complete lattice—in particular, subgame-perfect Nash equilibria exist. For this purpose I introduce a device that allows the study of the set of subgame-perfect equilibria as the set of fixed points of a correspondence. My results are limited because extensive-form games of strategic complementarities turn out—surprisingly—to be a very restrictive class of games.     

The envelope theorem for locally differentiable Nash equilibria of finite horizon differential games

Envelope theorems are established for a ubiquitous class of finite horizon differential games. The theorems cover open-loop and feedback information patterns in which the corresponding Nash equilibria are locally differentiable with respect to the parameters of the game. Their relationship with extant envelope results is discussed and an application of them to a generalized capital accumulation game is provided. An important implication of the theorems is that, in general, the archetypal economic interpretation of the costate vector, namely, as the shadow value of the state vector along the Nash equilibrium, is valid for feedback Nash equilibria, but not for open-loop Nash equilibria.     

Brown–von Neumann–Nash dynamics: The continuous strategy case

Brown and von Neumann introduced a dynamical system that converges to saddle points of zero sum games with finitely many strategies. Nash used the mapping underlying these dynamics to prove existence of equilibria in general games. The resulting Brown–von Neumann–Nash dynamics are a benchmark example for myopic adjustment dynamics that, in contrast to replicator dynamics, allow for innovation, but require less rationality than the best response dynamics. This paper studies the BNN dynamics for games with infinitely many strategies. We establish Nash stationarity for continuous payoff functions. For negative semidefinite games (that include zero sum games), we generalize the results of Brown and von Neumann. In addition, we show that evolutionarily robust Nash equilibria are asymptotically stable. A complete stability analysis for doubly symmetric games is also obtained.     

Competitive behavior in market games: Evidence and theory

We explore whether competitive outcomes arise in an experimental implementation of a market game, introduced by Shubik (1973) [21]. Market games obtain Pareto inferior (strict) Nash equilibria, in which some or possibly all markets are closed. We find that subjects do not coordinate on autarkic Nash equilibria, but favor more efficient Nash equilibria in which all markets are open. As the number of subjects participating in the market game increases, the Nash equilibrium they achieve approximates the associated competitive equilibrium of the underlying economy. Motivated by these findings, we provide a theoretical argument for why evolutionary forces can lead to competitive outcomes in market games.     

Iterated strict dominance in general games

We offer a definition of iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies (IESDS^*) for games with (in)finite players, (non)compact strategy sets, and (dis)continuous payoff functions. IESDS^* is always a well-defined order independent procedure that can be used to solve Nash equilibrium in dominance-solvable games. We characterize IESDS^* by means of a “stability” criterion, and offer a sufficient and necessary epistemic condition for IESDS^*. We show by an example that IESDS^* may generate spurious Nash equilibria in the class of Reny's better-reply secure games. We provide sufficient/necessary conditions under which IESDS^* preserves the set of Nash equilibria.     

Existence of nontrivial equilibria in repeated games with imperfect private monitoring

We consider finitely repeated games with imperfect private monitoring, and provide several sufficient conditions for such a game to have an equilibrium whose outcome is different from repetition of Nash equilibria of the stage game. Surprisingly, the conditions are consistent with uniqueness of the stage game equilibrium. A class of repeated chicken is shown to satisfy the condition.     

EQUILIBRIA IN NON-COOPERATIVE GAMES II: DEVIATIONS BASED REFINEMENTS OF NASH EQUILIBRIUM

In any Nash equilibrium no player will unilaterally deviate. However, many games have multiple Nash equilibria. In this paper, we survey some refinements of Nash equilibria based on the hypothesis that any player may consider a deliberate deviation from a Nash equilibrium vector while expecting other players to respond optimally to this deviation. The concepts studied here differ in the expectations players have about other players' responses to a deviation. This sort of deviations philosophy is predicated on the thought process of players. Therefore, the validity of a particular equilibrium concept to an economic model may depend upon the relevance of the thought process implied by the concept.     

Equilibrium play in matches: Binary Markov games

We study two-person extensive form games, or “matches,” in which the only possible outcomes (if the game terminates) are that one player or the other is declared the winner. The winner of the match is determined by the winning of points, in “point games.” We call these matches binary Markov games. We show that if a simple monotonicity condition is satisfied, then (a) it is a Nash equilibrium of the match for the players, at each point, to play a Nash equilibrium of the point game; (b) it is a minimax behavior strategy in the match for a player to play minimax in each point game; and (c) when the point games all have unique Nash equilibria, the only Nash equilibrium of the binary Markov game consists of minimax play at each point. An application to tennis is provided.     

Discontinuous stable games and efficient Nash equilibria

In the recent paper by the author [Scalzo, V., 2010. Pareto efficient Nash equilibria in discontinuous games. Economics Letters 107, 364-365], a class of discontinuous games where efficient Nash equilibria exist has been defined. In the present paper, we complete the previous investigation and recognize a class of discontinuous games where the efficient Nash equilibria are stable with respect to perturbations of the characteristics of players.     

Asymptotic expected number of Nash equilibria of two-player normal form games

The formula given by McLennan [The mean number of real roots of a multihomogeneous system of polynomial equations, Amer. J. Math. 124 (2002) 49–73] is applied to the mean number of Nash equilibria of random two-player normal form games in which the two players have M and N pure strategies respectively. Holding M fixed while N→∞, the expected number of Nash equilibria is approximately . Letting M=N→∞, the expected number of Nash equilibria is , where is a constant, and almost all equilibria have each player assigning positive probability to approximately 31.5915 percent of her pure strategies.     

Two more classes of games with the continuous-time fictitious play property

Fictitious Play is the oldest and most studied learning process for games. Since the already classical result for zero-sum games, convergence of beliefs to the set of Nash equilibria has been established for several classes of games, including weighted potential games, supermodular games with diminishing returns, and 3×3 supermodular games. Extending these results, we establish convergence of Continuous-time Fictitious Play for ordinal potential games and quasi-supermodular games with diminishing returns. As a by-product we obtain convergence for 3×m and 4×4 quasi-supermodular games.     

Adaptation and complexity in repeated games

The paper presents a learning model for two-player infinitely repeated games. In an inference step players construct minimally complex inferences of strategies based on observed play, and in an adaptation step players choose minimally complex best responses to an inference. When players randomly select an inference from a probability distribution with full support the set of steady states is a subset of the set of Nash equilibria in which only stage game Nash equilibria are played. When players make ‘cautious’ inferences the set of steady states is the subset of self-confirming equilibria with Nash outcome paths. When players use different inference rules, the set of steady states can lie between the previous two cases.     

Cycling in a stochastic learning algorithm for normal form games

In this paper we study a stochastic learning model for 2×2 normal form games that are played repeatedly. The main emphasis is put on the emergence of cycles. We assume that the players have neither information about the payoff matrix of their opponent nor about their own. At every round each player can only observe his or her action and the payoff he or she receives. We prove that the learning algorithm, which is modeled by an urn scheme proposed by Arthur (1993), leads with positive probability to a cycling of strategy profiles if the game has a mixed Nash equilibrium. In case there are strict Nash equilibria, the learning process converges a.s. to the set of Nash equilibria.     

Equilibrium selection in coordination games with simultaneous play

Summary. We apply the dynamic stochastic framework proposed in recent evolutionary literature to a class of coordination games played simultaneously by the entire population. In these games payoffs, and hence best replies, are determined by a summary statistic of the population strategy profile. We demonstrate that with simultaneous play, the equilibrium selection depends crucially on how best responses to the summary statistic remain piece-wise constant. In fact, all the strict Nash equilibria in the underlying stage game can be made stochastically stable depending on how the best response mapping generates piece-wise constant best responses. Received: February 12, 2001; revised version: October 29, 2001     

Incentive monotonicity and equilibrium selection in 2×2 matrix games

For the class of 2×2 matrix games with two strict Nash equilibria the paper introduces an equilibrium refinement called incentive monotonicity. It selects the risk-dominant equilibrium if interests are conflicting, while it remains silent in games with common interests. These results suggest that the equilibrium-selection problem might be more difficult in games with common interests, which is certainly the case if risk dominance and payoff dominance go in opposite directions.     

Essential equilibria of discontinuous games

We introduce spaces of discontinuous games in which games having essential Nash equilibria are the generic case. In order to prove the existence of essential Nash equilibria in such spaces, we provide new results on the Ky Fan minimax inequality. In the setting of potential games, we show that games with essential Nash equilibria are the generic case when their potentials satisfy a condition called weak upper pseudocontinuity that is weaker than upper semicontinuity.     

The supercore for normal-form games

This paper analyzes the supercore of a system derived from a normal-form game. For the case of a finite game with pure strategies, we define a sequence of games and show that the supercore coincides with the set of Nash equilibria of the last game in that sequence. This result is illustrated with the characterization of the supercore for the n-person prisoner's dilemma. With regard to the mixed extension of a normal-form game, we show that the set of Nash equilibrium profiles coincides with the supercore for games with a finite number of Nash equilibria.     

Adaptive Learning and Iterated Weak Dominance

This article addresses the idea that rational players should not play iteratively weakly dominated strategies by showing that when a particular type of adaptive learning process converges, then players must have learned to play strategy profiles equivalent to those that survive iterated nice weak dominance and, for certain games, equivalent to those that survive iterated weak dominance. For games satisfying the weak single crossing condition, the set of strategies that survive iterated weak dominance is small in that its bounds are pure strategy Nash equilibria. The results hold regardless of the order in which dominated strategies are eliminated.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C72.     

Evolutionary Stability of Pure-Strategy Equilibria in Finite Games

Sufficient conditions for pure-strategy Nash equilibria of finite games to be (Lyapunov) stable under a large class of evolutionary dynamics, the regular monotonic selection dynamics, are discussed. In particular, it is shown that in almost all finite extensive-form games, all the pure-strategy equilibria are stable. In such games, all mixed-strategy equilibria close to pure-strategy equilibria are also stable.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C70, C72.     

Interconnected games and international environmental problems

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of interconnected games and to show its relevance for modeling international environmental problems. It is argued that an interconnected game approach to international environmental problems may enhance cooperation and provide an alternative to the use of financial side payments to induce countries to cooperate. Two types of interconnected games are distinguished in this paper, i.e. direct sum games and tensor games. In the former all the constituting isolated games are games in strategic form and in the latter they are repeated games. In both cases the interconnected game can be interpreted as a multiple objective game, but only the setting where a trade-off is made for the vector-payoffs is considered. In addition to the formal definition of these types of interconnected games, some elementary results concerning Nash equilibria of such games are derived.Folmer and v. Mouche: Landbouwuniversiteit Wageningen, Postbus 8130, 6700 EW Wageningen, The Netherlands; Ragland: University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0256, U.S.A. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the EAERE conference in Stockholm, June 1991. The authors appreciate comments made by conference participants and journal referees.