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On the existence of pure-strategy perfect equilibrium in discontinuous games

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  • Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol

Abstract

We provide sufficient conditions for a (possibly) discontinuous normal-form game to possess a pure-strategy trembling-hand perfect equilibrium. We first show that compactness, continuity, and quasiconcavity of a game are too weak to warrant the existence of a pure-strategy perfect equilibrium. We then identify two classes of games for which the existence of a pure-strategy perfect equilibrium can be established: (1) the class of compact, metric, concave games satisfying upper semicontinuity of the sum of payoffs and a strengthening of payoff security; and (2) the class of compact, metric games satisfying upper semicontinuity of the sum of payoffs, strengthenings of payoff security and quasiconcavity, and a notion of local concavity and boundedness of payoff differences on certain subdomains of a player's payoff function. Various economic games illustrate our results.

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  • Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol, 2011. "On the existence of pure-strategy perfect equilibrium in discontinuous games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 23-48, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:71:y:2011:i:1:p:23-48
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    Cited by:

    1. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard McLean, 2013. "Approximation results for discontinuous games with an application to equilibrium refinement," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(1), pages 1-26, September.
    2. Vincenzo Scalzo, 2014. "On the existence of essential and trembling-hand perfect equilibria in discontinuous games," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, April.
    3. Rabia Nessah, 2022. "Weakly continuous security and nash equilibrium," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 725-745, November.
    4. Andersson, Ola & Argenton, Cédric & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2014. "Robustness to strategic uncertainty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 272-288.
    5. Rabia Nessah, 2013. "Weakly Continuous Security in Discontinuous and Nonquasiconcave Games: Existence and Characterization," Working Papers 2013-ECO-20, IESEG School of Management.
    6. Tatsuki Homma & Ryosuke Iba & Junyi Shen & Takuma Wakayama & Hirofumi Yamamura & Takehiko Yamato, 2022. "The pivotal mechanism versus the voluntary contribution mechanism: an experimental comparison," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(3), pages 429-505, April.
    7. Ghislain H. Demeze-Jouatsa & Roland Pongou & Jean-Baptiste Tondji, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Papers 2107.12870, arXiv.org.
    8. Philippe Bich, 2016. "Prudent Equilibria and Strategic Uncertainty in Discontinuous Games," Working Papers halshs-01337293, HAL.
    9. De Sinopoli, Francesco & Meroni, Claudia & Pimienta, Carlos, 2014. "Strategic stability in Poisson games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 46-63.
    10. Carmona, Guilherme, 2019. "On the existence of limit admissible equilibria in discontinuous games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 14-21.
    11. Philip J. Reny, 2020. "Nash Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 439-470, August.
    12. Bich, Philippe, 2019. "Strategic uncertainty and equilibrium selection in discontinuous games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 786-822.
    13. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol, 2011. "Perfect and limit admissible perfect equilibria in discontinuous games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 531-540.
    14. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau, 2021. "Perfect equilibria in games of incomplete information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1591-1648, June.
    15. Demeze-Jouatsa, Ghislain-Herman & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 653, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    16. , & , P., 2014. "Refinements of Nash equilibrium in potential games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), September.
    17. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol, 2011. "On strategic stability in discontinuous games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 120-123.
    18. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol, 2014. "On essential, (strictly) perfect equilibria," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 157-162.
    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. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard McLean, 2015. "On equilibrium refinements in supermodular games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(4), pages 869-890, November.
    21. Philippe Bich, 2016. "Prudent Equilibria and Strategic Uncertainty in Discontinuous Games," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01337293, HAL.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau, 2011. "The Existence of Perfect Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-22, July.
    25. Sun, Xiang & Zeng, Yishu, 2020. "Perfect and proper equilibria in large games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 288-308.

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