IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joecth/v73y2022i4d10.1007_s00199-021-01374-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discontinuous stochastic games

Author

Listed:
  • Wei He

    (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Abstract

We prove for a large class of stochastic games with discontinuous payoffs, a stationary Markov perfect equilibrium exists under the condition of “continuation payoff security.” This condition is easy to verify and holds in many economic games. Roughly, a game belongs to this class if for any action/state profiles and continuation payoff, a player can identify another action at the current stage with the payoff not much worse than her current one, even if other players perturb actions slightly. As an illustrative application of the equilibrium existence result, we provide a stochastic dynamic oligopoly model of firm entry, exit, and price competitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei He, 2022. "Discontinuous stochastic games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 827-858, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:73:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s00199-021-01374-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-021-01374-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-021-01374-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00199-021-01374-5?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cole, Harold L. & Kocherlakota, Narayana, 2001. "Dynamic Games with Hidden Actions and Hidden States," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 114-126, May.
    2. Duffie, Darrell, et al, 1994. "Stationary Markov Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 745-781, July.
    3. , & , P., 2014. "Refinements of Nash equilibrium in potential games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), September.
    4. John Duggan, 2012. "Noisy Stochastic Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(5), pages 2017-2045, September.
    5. Prokopovych, Pavlo & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2019. "On monotone approximate and exact equilibria of an asymmetric first-price auction with affiliated private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. He, Wei & Sun, Yeneng, 2017. "Stationary Markov perfect equilibria in discounted stochastic games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 35-61.
    9. Philip J. Reny, 2020. "Nash Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 439-470, August.
    10. Johannes Hörner & Wojciech Olszewski, 2009. "How Robust is the Folk Theorem?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1773-1814.
    11. Łukasz Balbus & Kevin Reffett & Łukasz Woźny, 2013. "Markov Stationary Equilibria in Stochastic Supermodular Games with Imperfect Private and Public Information," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 187-206, June.
    12. Yehuda John Levy & Andrew McLennan, 2015. "Corrigendum to “Discounted Stochastic Games With No Stationary Nash Equilibrium: Two Examples”," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(3), pages 1237-1252, May.
    13. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard P. McLean, 2018. "On the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Bayesian Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 100-129, February.
    14. Richard Ericson & Ariel Pakes, 1995. "Markov-Perfect Industry Dynamics: A Framework for Empirical Work," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82.
    15. 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.
    16. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1988. "A Theory of Dynamic Oligopoly, II: Price Competition, Kinked Demand Curves, and Edgeworth Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 571-599, May.
    17. 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.
    18. Balbus, Łukasz & Reffett, Kevin & Woźny, Łukasz, 2014. "A constructive study of Markov equilibria in stochastic games with strategic complementarities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 815-840.
    19. 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.
    20. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1988. "A Theory of Dynamic Oligopoly, I: Overview and Quantity Competition with Large Fixed Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 549-569, May.
    21. Kutay Cingiz & János Flesch & P. Jean-Jacques Herings & Arkadi Predtetchinski, 2020. "Perfect information games where each player acts only once," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 965-985, June.
    22. John Duggan, 2012. "Noisy Stochastic Games," RCER Working Papers 570, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    23. Kandori, Michihiro, 2002. "Introduction to Repeated Games with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-15, January.
    24. 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.
    25. Monteiro, Paulo Klinger & Page Jr, Frank H., 2007. "Uniform payoff security and Nash equilibrium in compact games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 566-575, May.
    26. AMIR, Rabah, 2001. "Stochastic games in economics and related fields: an overview," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2001060, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    27. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Markov Perfect Equilibrium: I. Observable Actions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 191-219, October.
    28. 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.
    29. 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.
    30. Kutay Cingiz & János Flesch & P. Jean-Jacques Herings & Arkadi Predtetchinski, 2020. "Correction to: Perfect information games where each player acts only once," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(3), pages 905-906, October.
    31. Yehuda Levy, 2013. "Discounted Stochastic Games With No Stationary Nash Equilibrium: Two Examples," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(5), pages 1973-2007, September.
    32. Rabah Amir, 2002. "Complementarity and Diagonal Dominance in Discounted Stochastic Games," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 39-56, August.
    33. Curtat, Laurent O., 1996. "Markov Equilibria of Stochastic Games with Complementarities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 177-199, December.
    34. Wei He & Yeneng Sun, 2013. "Stationary Markov Perfect Equilibria in Discounted Stochastic Games," Papers 1311.1562, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2017.
    35. Andrzej Nowak, 2007. "On stochastic games in economics," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 66(3), pages 513-530, December.
    36. A. S. Nowak & T. E. S. Raghavan, 1992. "Existence of Stationary Correlated Equilibria with Symmetric Information for Discounted Stochastic Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 519-526, August.
    37. Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Kim C. Border, 2006. "Infinite Dimensional Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-29587-7, December.
    38. Adlakha, Sachin & Johari, Ramesh & Weintraub, Gabriel Y., 2015. "Equilibria of dynamic games with many players: Existence, approximation, and market structure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 269-316.
    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. Peixuan Li & Chuangyin Dang & P. Jean-Jacques Herings, 2024. "Computing perfect stationary equilibria in stochastic games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(2), pages 347-387, September.

    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. He, Wei & Sun, Yeneng, 2017. "Stationary Markov perfect equilibria in discounted stochastic games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 35-61.
    2. Łukasz Balbus & Kevin Reffett & Łukasz Woźny, 2013. "Markov Stationary Equilibria in Stochastic Supermodular Games with Imperfect Private and Public Information," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 187-206, June.
    3. Anna Jaśkiewicz & Andrzej S. Nowak, 2016. "Stationary Almost Markov Perfect Equilibria in Discounted Stochastic Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 430-441, May.
    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., 2019. "On monotone approximate and exact equilibria of an asymmetric first-price auction with affiliated private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    6. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard P. McLean, 2019. "Nash and Bayes–Nash equilibria in strategic-form games with intransitivities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(4), pages 935-965, November.
    7. Jenkins, Mark & Liu, Paul & Matzkin, Rosa L. & McFadden, Daniel L., 2021. "The browser war — Analysis of Markov Perfect Equilibrium in markets with dynamic demand effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 244-260.
    8. Jaśkiewicz, Anna & Nowak, Andrzej S., 2014. "Stationary Markov perfect equilibria in risk sensitive stochastic overlapping generations models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 411-447.
    9. Duggan, John & Kalandrakis, Tasos, 2012. "Dynamic legislative policy making," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1653-1688.
    10. Allison, Blake A. & Bagh, Adib & Lepore, Jason J., 2018. "Sufficient conditions for weak reciprocal upper semi-continuity in mixed extensions of games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 99-107.
    11. Kimmo Berg, 2016. "Elementary Subpaths in Discounted Stochastic Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 304-323, September.
    12. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard McLean, 2014. "On the existence of Nash equilibrium in Bayesian games," Departmental Working Papers 201402, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    13. 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.
    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. Wei He & Xiang Sun & Yeneng Sun & Yishu Zeng, 2021. "Characterization of equilibrium existence and purification in general Bayesian games," Papers 2106.08563, arXiv.org.
    16. Olszewski, Wojciech & Siegel, Ron, 2023. "Equilibrium existence in games with ties," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), May.
    17. Escobar, Juan F., 2013. "Equilibrium analysis of dynamic models of imperfect competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 92-101.
    18. Qingda Wei & Xian Chen, 2022. "Discounted stochastic games for continuous-time jump processes with an uncountable state space," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 95(2), pages 187-218, April.
    19. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard P. McLean, 2018. "On the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Bayesian Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 100-129, February.
    20. Page, Frank, 2016. "Stationary Markov equilibria for approximable discounted stochastic games," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67808, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stochastic game; Discontinuous payoff; Continuation payoff security; Stationary Markov perfect equilibrium; Dynamic oligopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary 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:spr:joecth:v:73:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s00199-021-01374-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.