Regular potential games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Swenson, Brian; Murray, Ryan; Kar, Soummya
• 署名单位: Princeton University; North Carolina State University; Carnegie Mellon University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.09.005
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 432-453
• 关键词: Game theory; potential games; Generic games; Regular equilibria; Multi-agent systems

摘要

A fundamental problem with the Nash equilibrium concept is the existence of certain structurally deficient equilibria that (i) lack fundamental robustness properties, and (ii) are difficult to analyze. The notion of a regular Nash equilibrium was introduced by Harsanyi. Such equilibria are isolated, highly robust, and relatively simple to analyze. A game is said to be regular if all equilibria in the game are regular. In this paper it is shown that almost all potential games are regular. That is, except for a closed subset with Lebesgue measure zero, all potential games are regular. As an immediate consequence of this, the paper also proves an oddness result for potential games: In almost all potential games, the number of Nash equilibrium strategies is finite and odd. Specialized results are given for weighted potential games, exact potential games, and games with identical payoffs. Applications of the results to game-theoretic learning are discussed. (c) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.