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On the number of pure strategy Nash equilibria in random games

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Scarsini

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Aziendali - LUISS - Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli [Roma])

  • Yosef Rinott

    (MATH - UC Davis - Department of Mathematics [Univ California Davis] - UC Davis - University of California [Davis] - UC - University of California)

Abstract

How many pure Nash equilibria can we expect to have in a finite game chosen at random? Solutions to the above problem have been proposed in some special cases. In this paper we assume independence among the profiles, but we allow either positive or negative dependence among the players' payoffs in a same profile. We provide asymptotic results for the distribution of the number of Nash equilibria when either the number of players or the number of strategies increases. We will show that different dependence assumptions lead to different asymptotic results.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Scarsini & Yosef Rinott, 2000. "On the number of pure strategy Nash equilibria in random games," Post-Print hal-00540207, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00540207
    DOI: 10.1006/game.1999.0775
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stanford, William, 1997. "On the distribution of pure strategy equilibria in finite games with vector payoffs," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 115-127, April.
    2. Powers, Imelda Yeung, 1990. "Limiting Distributions of the Number of Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria in N-Person Games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 19(3), pages 277-286.
    3. Yosef Rinott & Vladimir Rotar, 2000. "Normal approximations by Stein's method," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 23(1), pages 15-29.
    4. Stanford, William, 1999. "On the number of pure strategy Nash equilibria in finite common payoffs games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 29-34, January.
    5. William Stanford, 1996. "The Limit Distribution of Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria in Symmetric Bimatrix Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(3), pages 726-733, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Szabó, György & Borsos, István & Szombati, Edit, 2019. "Games, graphs and Kirchhoff laws," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 521(C), pages 416-423.
    2. Tom Johnston & Michael Savery & Alex Scott & Bassel Tarbush, 2023. "Game Connectivity and Adaptive Dynamics," Papers 2309.10609, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    3. Porter, Ryan & Nudelman, Eugene & Shoham, Yoav, 2008. "Simple search methods for finding a Nash equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 642-662, July.
    4. Torsten Heinrich & Yoojin Jang & Luca Mungo & Marco Pangallo & Alex Scott & Bassel Tarbush & Samuel Wiese, 2023. "Best-response dynamics, playing sequences, and convergence to equilibrium in random games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(3), pages 703-735, September.
    5. Stanford, William, 2010. "The number of pure strategy Nash equilibria in random multi-team games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 352-354, September.
    6. Collevecchio, Andrea & LiCalzi, Marco, 2012. "The probability of nontrivial common knowledge," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 556-570.
    7. Hlafo Alfie Mimun & Matteo Quattropani & Marco Scarsini, 2022. "Best-Response dynamics in two-person random games with correlated payoffs," Papers 2209.12967, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    8. Rinott, Yosef & Rotar, Vladimir, 2001. "A remark on quadrant normal probabilities in high dimensions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 47-51, January.
    9. Torsten Heinrich & Yoojin Jang & Luca Mungo & Marco Pangallo & Alex Scott & Bassel Tarbush & Samuel Wiese, 2021. "Best-response dynamics, playing sequences, and convergence to equilibrium in random games," Papers 2101.04222, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    10. Pei, Ting & Takahashi, Satoru, 2019. "Rationalizable strategies in random games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 110-125.
    11. Ben Amiet & Andrea Collevecchio & Kais Hamza, 2020. "When "Better" is better than "Best"," Papers 2011.00239, arXiv.org.
    12. Pangallo, Marco & Heinrich, Torsten & Jang, Yoojin & Scott, Alex & Tarbush, Bassel & Wiese, Samuel & Mungo, Luca, 2021. "Best-Response Dynamics, Playing Sequences, And Convergence To Equilibrium In Random Games," INET Oxford Working Papers 2021-23, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    13. Ben Amiet & Andrea Collevecchio & Marco Scarsini & Ziwen Zhong, 2021. "Pure Nash Equilibria and Best-Response Dynamics in Random Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 1552-1572, November.
    14. Takahashi, Satoru, 2008. "The number of pure Nash equilibria in a random game with nondecreasing best responses," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 328-340, May.
    15. Arieli, Itai & Babichenko, Yakov, 2016. "Random extensive form games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 517-535.

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    Keywords

    Games; strategy; equilibria;
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