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Polynomial-time computation of exact correlated equilibrium in compact games

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  • Jiang, Albert Xin
  • Leyton-Brown, Kevin

Abstract

In a landmark paper, Papadimitriou and Roughgarden described a polynomial-time algorithm (“Ellipsoid Against Hope”) for computing sample correlated equilibria of concisely-represented games. Recently, Stein, Parrilo and Ozdaglar showed that this algorithm can fail to find an exact correlated equilibrium. We present a variant of the Ellipsoid Against Hope algorithm that guarantees the polynomial-time identification of exact correlated equilibrium. Our algorithm differs from the original primarily in its use of a separation oracle that produces cuts corresponding to pure-strategy profiles. Our new separation oracle can be understood as a derandomization of Papadimitriou and Roughgarden's original separation oracle via the method of conditional probabilities. We also adapt our techniques to two related algorithms that are based on the Ellipsoid Against Hope approach, Hart and Mansour's communication procedure for correlated equilibria and Huang and von Stengel's algorithm for extensive-form correlated equilibria, in both cases yielding efficient exact solutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Albert Xin & Leyton-Brown, Kevin, 2015. "Polynomial-time computation of exact correlated equilibrium in compact games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 347-359.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:91:y:2015:i:c:p:347-359
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2013.02.002
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    Cited by:

    1. Hart, Sergiu & Nisan, Noam, 2018. "The query complexity of correlated equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 401-410.
    2. Babichenko, Yakov & Rubinstein, Aviad, 2022. "Communication complexity of approximate Nash equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 376-398.
    3. Tim Roughgarden, 2018. "Complexity Theory, Game Theory, and Economics: The Barbados Lectures," Papers 1801.00734, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.
    4. AmirMahdi Ahmadinejad & Sina Dehghani & MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi & Brendan Lucier & Hamid Mahini & Saeed Seddighin, 2019. "From Duels to Battlefields: Computing Equilibria of Blotto and Other Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 1304-1325, November.
    5. Bhaskar, Umang & Ligett, Katrina & Schulman, Leonard J. & Swamy, Chaitanya, 2019. "Achieving target equilibria in network routing games without knowing the latency functions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 533-569.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Correlated equilibrium; Ellipsoid method; Separation oracle; Derandomization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

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