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Decompositions and potentials for normal form games

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  • Sandholm, William H.

Abstract

We introduce a method of decomposing a -player normal form game into simultaneously-played component games, each distinguished by the set of "active" players whose choices influence payoffs. We then prove that a normal form game is a potential game if and only if in each of the component games, all active players have identical payoff functions, and that in this case, the sum of these shared payoff functions is the original game's potential function. We conclude by discussing algorithms for deciding whether a given normal form game is a potential game.

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  • Sandholm, William H., 2010. "Decompositions and potentials for normal form games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 446-456, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:70:y:2010:i:2:p:446-456
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. William H. Sandholm, 2002. "Evolutionary Implementation and Congestion Pricing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(3), pages 667-689.
    2. Sandholm, William H., 2009. "Large population potential games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1710-1725, July.
    3. Slade, Margaret E, 1994. "What Does an Oligopoly Maximize?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 45-61, March.
    4. Hart, Sergiu & Mas-Colell, Andreu, 1989. "Potential, Value, and Consistency," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 589-614, May.
    5. Sandholm, William H., 2007. "Pigouvian pricing and stochastic evolutionary implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 367-382, January.
    6. Sandholm, William H., 2001. "Potential Games with Continuous Player Sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 81-108, March.
    7. Ui, Takashi, 2000. "A Shapley Value Representation of Potential Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 121-135, April.
    8. William H. Sandholm, 2005. "Negative Externalities and Evolutionary Implementation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 885-915.
    9. Monderer, Dov & Shapley, Lloyd S., 1996. "Potential Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 124-143, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hellmann, Tim & Staudigl, Mathias, 2014. "Evolution of social networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 583-596.
    2. Joseph Abdou & Nikolaos Pnevmatikos & Marco Scarsini & Xavier Venel, 2022. "Decomposition of Games: Some Strategic Considerations," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 176-208, February.
    3. Joseph Abdou & Nikolaos Pnevmatikos & Marco Scarsini, 2014. "Uniformity and games decomposition," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14084r, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, revised Mar 2017.
    4. Hwang, Sung-Ha & Rey-Bellet, Luc, 2021. "Positive feedback in coordination games: Stochastic evolutionary dynamics and the logit choice rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 355-373.
    5. Nora, Vladyslav & Uno, Hiroshi, 2014. "Saddle functions and robust sets of equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 866-877.
    6. Kukushkin, Nikolai S., 2014. "Rosenthal's potential and a discrete version of the Debreu--Gorman Theorem," MPRA Paper 54171, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Mantas Radzvilas & Francesco De Pretis & William Peden & Daniele Tortoli & Barbara Osimani, 2023. "Incentives for Research Effort: An Evolutionary Model of Publication Markets with Double-Blind and Open Review," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 1433-1476, April.
    8. Lina Mallozzi, 2013. "An application of optimization theory to the study of equilibria for games: a survey," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 21(3), pages 523-539, September.
    9. Debapriya Sen, 2018. "Potential games, path independence and Poisson’s binomial distribution," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 88(1), pages 125-146, August.
    10. Ozan Candogan & Ishai Menache & Asuman Ozdaglar & Pablo A. Parrilo, 2011. "Flows and Decompositions of Games: Harmonic and Potential Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 474-503, August.
    11. Ragavendran Gopalakrishnan & Jason R. Marden & Adam Wierman, 2014. "Potential Games Are Necessary to Ensure Pure Nash Equilibria in Cost Sharing Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 1252-1296, November.
    12. UNO, Hiroshi, 2011. "Nested potentials and robust equilibria," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011009, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    13. Sandholm, William H. & Staudigl, Mathias, 2016. "Large Deviations and Stochastic Stability in the Small Noise Double Limit, II: The Logit Model," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 506, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    14. Hwang, Sung-Ha & Rey-Bellet, Luc, 2020. "Strategic decompositions of normal form games: Zero-sum games and potential games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 370-390.

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