Coherence of probabilistic constraints on Nash equilibria

Sandro Preto; Eduardo Fermé; Marcelo Finger

doi:10.5753/jbcs.2022.2434

Authors

Sandro Preto University of São Paulo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4448-5364
Eduardo Fermé University of Madeira and NOVA-LINCS https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9618-2421
Marcelo Finger University of São Paulo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1391-1175

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5753/jbcs.2022.2434

Keywords:

Nash equilibrium, Uncertain game, Probabilistic constraints, Coherence of constraints

Abstract

In this work, we first deal with the modeling of game situations that reach one of possibly many Nash equilibria. Before an instance of such a game starts, an external observer does not know, a priori, what is the exact profile of actions -- constituting an equilibrium -- that will occur; thus, he assigns subjective probabilities to players' actions. Such scenario is formalized as an observable game, which is a newly introduced structure for that purpose. Then, we study the decision problem of determining if a given set of probabilistic constraints assigned a priori by the observer to a given game is coherent, called the PCE-Coherence problem. We show several results concerning algorithms and complexity for PCE-Coherence when pure Nash equilibria and specific classes of games, called GNP-classes, are considered. In this context, we also study the computation of maximal and minimal probabilistic constraints on actions that preserves coherence. Finally, we study these problems when mixed Nash equilibria are allowed in GNP-classes of 2-player games.

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