IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v152y2014icp130-178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Existence of Nash equilibrium in games with a measure space of players and discontinuous payoff functions

Author

Listed:
  • Carmona, Guilherme
  • Podczeck, Konrad

Abstract

Balder's [6] model of games with a measure space of players is integrated with the line of research on finite-player games with discontinuous payoff functions which follows Reny [47]. Specifically, we extend the notion of continuous security, introduced by McLennan, Monteiro & Tourky [38] and Barelli & Meneghel [9] for finite-players games, to games with a measure space of players and establish the existence of pure strategy Nash equilibrium for such games. A specification of our main existence result is provided which is ready to fit the needs of applications. As an illustration, we consider several optimal income tax problems in the spirit of Mirrlees [40] and use our game-theoretic result to show the existence of an optimal income tax in each of these problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Carmona, Guilherme & Podczeck, Konrad, 2014. "Existence of Nash equilibrium in games with a measure space of players and discontinuous payoff functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 130-178.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:152:y:2014:i:c:p:130-178
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2014.04.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053114000568
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2014.04.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmona, Guilherme, 2009. "An existence result for discontinuous games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1333-1340, May.
    2. Paulo Barelli & Idione Meneghel, 2013. "A Note on the Equilibrium Existence Problem in Discontinuous Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 813-824, March.
    3. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    4. Philippe Bich & Rida Laraki, 2012. "A Unified Approach to Equilibrium Existence in Discontinuous Strategic Games," Post-Print halshs-00717135, HAL.
    5. Philippe Bich & Rida Laraki, 2012. "A Unified Approach to Equilibrium Existence in Discontinuous Strategic Games," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12040, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    6. Khan, M. Ali & Sun, Yeneng, 1999. "Non-cooperative games on hyperfinite Loeb spaces1," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 455-492, May.
    7. Guilherme Carmona, 2011. "Understanding some recent existence results for discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(1), pages 31-45, September.
    8. Bich Philippe, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(3), pages 395-410, November.
    9. SCHMEIDLER, David, 1973. "Equilibrium points of nonatomic games," LIDAM Reprints CORE 146, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. George-Marios Angeletos & Christian Hellwig & Alessandro Pavan, 2007. "Dynamic Global Games of Regime Change: Learning, Multiplicity, and the Timing of Attacks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 711-756, May.
    11. Andrew McLennan & Paulo K. Monteiro & Rabee Tourky, 2011. "Games With Discontinuous Payoffs: A Strengthening of Reny's Existence Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1643-1664, September.
    12. Paul R. Milgrom & Robert J. Weber, 1985. "Distributional Strategies for Games with Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 10(4), pages 619-632, November.
    13. Kim, Taesung & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 1997. "Existence of Equilibrium in Bayesian Games with Infinitely Many Players," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 330-353, December.
    14. Nessah, Rabia, 2011. "Generalized weak transfer continuity and the Nash equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 659-662.
    15. Mikhail Golosov & Narayana Kocherlakota & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2003. "Optimal Indirect and Capital Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 569-587.
    16. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 09061, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00750953, HAL.
    18. Rath, Kali P, 1992. "A Direct Proof of the Existence of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Games with a Continuum of Players," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(3), pages 427-433, July.
    19. Philip J. Reny, 2016. "Nash equilibrium in discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 553-569, March.
    20. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00426402, HAL.
    21. Philip Reny, 2011. "Strategic approximations of discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(1), pages 17-29, September.
    22. Rath, Kali P., 1996. "Existence and upper hemicontinuity of equilibrium distributions of anonymous games with discontinuous payoffs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 305-324.
    23. Adib Bagh & Alejandro Jofre, 2006. "Reciprocal Upper Semicontinuity and Better Reply Secure Games: A Comment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1715-1721, November.
    24. Karni, Edi & Levin, Dan, 1994. "Social Attributes and Strategic Equilibrium: A Restaurant Pricing Game," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 822-840, August.
    25. Khan, M. Ali & Rath, Kali P. & Sun, Yeneng, 1997. "On the Existence of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Games with a Continuum of Players," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 13-46, September.
    26. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00750953, HAL.
    27. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," Post-Print halshs-00426402, HAL.
    28. Carmona, Guilherme & Podczeck, Konrad, 2009. "On the existence of pure-strategy equilibria in large games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1300-1319, May.
    29. Nicholas Yannelis, 2009. "Debreu’s social equilibrium theorem with asymmetric information and a continuum of agents," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(2), pages 419-432, February.
    30. Pavlo Prokopovych, 2011. "On equilibrium existence in payoff secure games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(1), pages 5-16, September.
    31. Mas-Colell, Andreu, 1984. "On a theorem of Schmeidler," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 201-206, December.
    32. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    33. Philip J. Reny, 1999. "On the Existence of Pure and Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibria in Discontinuous Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(5), pages 1029-1056, September.
    34. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 2010. "The New Dynamic Public Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9222.
    35. Luciano Castro, 2011. "Equilibrium existence and approximation of regular discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(1), pages 67-85, September.
    36. Rui Pascoa, Mario, 1993. "Approximate equilibrium in pure strategies for non-atomic games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 223-241.
    37. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 27-41.
    38. Konrad Podczeck, 2009. "On purification of measure-valued maps," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(2), pages 399-418, February.
    39. Chari, V V & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1990. "Sustainable Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 783-802, August.
    40. Philippe Bich, 2009. "Existence of pure Nash equilibria in discontinuous and non quasiconcave games," Post-Print hal-00750953, HAL.
    41. Roughgarden, Tim & Tardos, Eva, 2004. "Bounding the inefficiency of equilibria in nonatomic congestion games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 389-403, May.
    42. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    43. Erik Balder, 2011. "An equilibrium closure result for discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(1), pages 47-65, September.
    44. Filipe Martins-da-Rocha, V. & Topuzu, Mihaela, 2008. "Cournot-Nash equilibria in continuum games with non-ordered preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 314-327, May.
    45. Sabourian, Hamid, 1990. "Anonymous repeated games with a large number of players and random outcomes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 92-110, June.
    46. Mailath, George J. & Samuelson, Larry, 2006. "Repeated Games and Reputations: Long-Run Relationships," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195300796.
    47. Erik J. Balder, 1988. "Generalized Equilibrium Results for Games with Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 265-276, May.
    48. Balder, Erik J., 2002. "A Unifying Pair of Cournot-Nash Equilibrium Existence Results," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 437-470, February.
    49. Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Kim C. Border, 2006. "Infinite Dimensional Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-29587-7, September.
    50. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6544 is not listed on IDEAS
    51. Pavlo Prokopovych, 2013. "The single deviation property in games with discontinuous payoffs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 53(2), pages 383-402, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Greinecker & Konrad Podczeck, 2013. "Purification and Independence," Working Papers 2013-18, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    2. Barlo, Mehmet & Carmona, Guilherme, 2015. "Strategic behavior in non-atomic games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 134-144.
    3. Carmona, Guilherme & Podczeck, Konrad, 2018. "Invariance of the equilibrium set of games with an endogenous sharing rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-33.
    4. Chen, Enxian & Qiao, Lei & Sun, Xiang & Sun, Yeneng, 2022. "Robust perfect equilibrium in large games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Kolpin, Van, 2014. "Endogenous convention, prejudice, and trust in demographic summary games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 128-133.
    6. Wei He & Yeneng Sun, 2018. "Conditional expectation of correspondences and economic applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(2), pages 265-299, August.
    7. Sofía Correa & Juan Torres-Martínez, 2014. "Essential equilibria of large generalized games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(3), pages 479-513, November.
    8. Rabia Nessah, 2013. "Weakly Continuous Security in Discontinuous and Nonquasiconcave Games: Existence and Characterization," Working Papers 2013-ECO-20, IESEG School of Management.
    9. Wu, Bin, 2022. "On pure-strategy Nash equilibria in large games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 305-315.
    10. Guilherme Carmona & Konrad Podczeck, 2016. "Existence of Nash equilibrium in ordinal games with discontinuous preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 457-478, March.
    11. Barelli, Paulo & Duggan, John, 2015. "Extremal choice equilibrium with applications to large games, stochastic games, & endogenous institutions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 95-130.
    12. Vincenzo Scalzo, 2016. "Remarks on the existence and stability of some relaxed Nash equilibrium in strategic form games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 571-586, March.
    13. Guilherme Carmona, 2016. "Reducible equilibrium properties: comments on recent existence results," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 431-455, March.
    14. He, Wei & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2016. "Existence of equilibria in discontinuous Bayesian games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 181-194.
    15. Carmona, Guilherme & Podczeck, Konrad, 2020. "Pure strategy Nash equilibria of large finite-player games and their relationship to non-atomic games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    16. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau, 2015. "Further results on essential Nash equilibria in normal-form games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(2), pages 277-300, June.
    17. Erhan Bayraktar & Alexander Munk, 2016. "High-Roller Impact: A Large Generalized Game Model of Parimutuel Wagering," Papers 1605.03653, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2017.
    18. Scalzo, Vincenzo, 2020. "Doubly Strong Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 99329, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Łukasz Balbus & Paweł Dziewulski & Kevin Reffett & Łukasz Woźny, 2019. "A qualitative theory of large games with strategic complementarities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(3), pages 497-523, April.
    20. Michael Greinecker & Konrad Podczeck, 2015. "Purification and roulette wheels," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(2), pages 255-272, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guilherme Carmona & Konrad Podczeck, 2016. "Existence of Nash equilibrium in ordinal games with discontinuous preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 457-478, March.
    2. He, Wei & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2015. "Discontinuous games with asymmetric information: An extension of Reny's existence theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 26-35.
    3. Guilherme Carmona, 2016. "Reducible equilibrium properties: comments on recent existence results," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 431-455, March.
    4. Rabia Nessah, 2022. "Weakly continuous security and nash equilibrium," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 725-745, November.
    5. Prokopovych, Pavlo & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2014. "On the existence of mixed strategy Nash equilibria," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 87-97.
    6. Rabia Nessah, 2013. "Weakly Continuous Security in Discontinuous and Nonquasiconcave Games: Existence and Characterization," Working Papers 2013-ECO-20, IESEG School of Management.
    7. Philip J. Reny, 2020. "Nash Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 439-470, August.
    8. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau, 2015. "Further results on essential Nash equilibria in normal-form games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(2), pages 277-300, June.
    9. Zhiwei Liu & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2013. "On Discontinuous Games with Asymmetric Information," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1318, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    10. Pavlo Prokopovych, 2016. "Majorized correspondences and equilibrium existence in discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 541-552, March.
    11. Philip J. Reny, 2016. "Nash equilibrium in discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 553-569, March.
    12. Rabia Nessah & Guoqiang Tian, 2016. "On the existence of Nash equilibrium in discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(3), pages 515-540, March.
    13. Alejandro Saporiti, 2014. "Power sharing and electoral equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 705-729, April.
    14. Vincenzo Scalzo, 2013. "Essential equilibria of discontinuous games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(1), pages 27-44, September.
    15. Pavlo Prokopovych, 2013. "The single deviation property in games with discontinuous payoffs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 53(2), pages 383-402, June.
    16. Iskakov, M., 2022. "Existence theorems for Nash equilibrium and equilibrium in secure strategies," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 12-27.
    17. Harks, Tobias & Klimm, Max, 2015. "Equilibria in a class of aggregative location games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 211-220.
    18. Pavlo Prokopovych & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2012. "On Uniform Conditions for the Existence of Mixed Strategy Equilibria," Discussion Papers 48, Kyiv School of Economics.
    19. Tian, Guoqiang, 2015. "On the existence of equilibria in games with arbitrary strategy spaces and preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 9-16.
    20. Iskakov, M. & Iskakov, A. & d'Aspremont, C., 2018. "Games for cautious players: The Equilibrium in Secure Strategies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 58-70.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nash equilibrium; Discontinuous games; Large games;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:152:y:2014:i:c:p:130-178. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.