IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jogath/v46y2017i3d10.1007_s00182-016-0555-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stationary, completely mixed and symmetric optimal and equilibrium strategies in stochastic games

Author

Listed:
  • Sujatha Babu

    (Indian Institute of Technology Madras)

  • Nagarajan Krishnamurthy

    (Indian Institute of Management Indore)

  • T. Parthasarathy

    (Indian Statistical Institute, Chennai Centre)

Abstract

In this paper, we address various types of two-person stochastic games—both zero-sum and nonzero-sum, discounted and undiscounted. In particular, we address different aspects of stochastic games, namely: (1) When is a two-person stochastic game completely mixed? (2) Can we identify classes of undiscounted zero-sum stochastic games that have stationary optimal strategies? (3) When does a two-person stochastic game possess symmetric optimal/equilibrium strategies? Firstly, we provide some necessary and some sufficient conditions under which certain classes of discounted and undiscounted stochastic games are completely mixed. In particular, we show that, if a discounted zero-sum switching control stochastic game with symmetric payoff matrices has a completely mixed stationary optimal strategy, then the stochastic game is completely mixed if and only if the matrix games restricted to states are all completely mixed. Secondly, we identify certain classes of undiscounted zero-sum stochastic games that have stationary optima under specific conditions for individual payoff matrices and transition probabilities. Thirdly, we provide sufficient conditions for discounted as well as certain classes of undiscounted stochastic games to have symmetric optimal/equilibrium strategies—namely, transitions are symmetric and the payoff matrices of one player are the transpose of those of the other. We also provide a sufficient condition for the stochastic game to have a symmetric pure strategy equilibrium. We also provide examples to show the sharpness of our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Sujatha Babu & Nagarajan Krishnamurthy & T. Parthasarathy, 2017. "Stationary, completely mixed and symmetric optimal and equilibrium strategies in stochastic games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(3), pages 761-782, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jogath:v:46:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s00182-016-0555-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s00182-016-0555-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00182-016-0555-5
    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/s00182-016-0555-5?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. Parthasarathy, T & Sinha, S, 1989. "Existence of Stationary Equilibrium Strategies in Non-zero Sum Discounted Stochastic Games with Uncountable State Space and State-Independent Transitions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 18(2), pages 189-194.
    2. Peter Duersch & Jörg Oechssler & Burkhard Schipper, 2012. "Pure strategy equilibria in symmetric two-player zero-sum games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(3), pages 553-564, August.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. János Flesch & Thiruvenkatachari Parthasarathy & Frank Thuijsman & Philippe Uyttendaele, 2013. "Evolutionary Stochastic Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 207-219, 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. K. C. Sivakumar & M. S. Gowda & G. Ravindran & Usha Mohan, 2020. "Preface: International conference on game theory and optimization, June 6–10, 2016, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 287(2), pages 565-572, April.

    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. 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.
    2. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David & Ralph, Daniel, 2013. "Supply function equilibria: Step functions and continuous representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1509-1551.
    3. Philippe Bich, 2016. "Prudent Equilibria and Strategic Uncertainty in Discontinuous Games," Working Papers halshs-01337293, HAL.
    4. Rabia Nessah & Guoqiang Tian, 2013. "Existence of Solution of Minimax Inequalities, Equilibria in Games and Fixed Points Without Convexity and Compactness Assumptions," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 75-95, April.
    5. Plan, Asaf, 2023. "Symmetry in n-player games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Rabia Nessah & Guoqiang Tian, 2008. "The Existence of Equilibria in Discontinuous and Nonconvex Games," Working Papers 2008-ECO-14, IESEG School of Management, revised Mar 2010.
    8. 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.
    9. Ghislain Herman Demeze-Jouatsa & Roland Pongou & Jean-Baptiste Tondji, 2024. "Justice, inclusion, and incentives," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(2), pages 101-131, April.
    10. Carmona, Guilherme, 2010. "Polytopes and the existence of approximate equilibria in discontinuous games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 381-388, January.
    11. Kim, Jeong-Yoo & Lee, Myeong Ho & Berg, Nathan, 2016. "Peak-load pricing in duopoly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 47-54.
    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, 2008. "Existence and Uniqueness of Nash Equilibrium in Electoral Competition Games: The Hybrid Case," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(5), pages 827-857, October.
    14. Guillaume Roger, 2017. "Two-sided competition with vertical differentiation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 193-217, April.
    15. 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).
    16. Ori Haimanko, 2021. "Bayesian Nash equilibrium existence in (almost continuous) contests," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(3), pages 1231-1258, April.
    17. Philippe Bich & Rida Laraki, 2014. "On the Existence of Approximate Equilibria and Sharing Rule Solutions in Discontinuous Games," Working Papers hal-01071678, HAL.
    18. Scalzo, Vincenzo, 2010. "Pareto efficient Nash equilibria in discontinuous games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 364-365, June.
    19. M. Ali Khan & Metin Uyanık, 2021. "Topological connectedness and behavioral assumptions on preferences: a two-way relationship," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(2), pages 411-460, March.
    20. Hallett, Andrew Hughes & Acocella, Nicola & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni, 2010. "Policy games, policy neutrality and Tinbergen controllability under rational expectations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 55-67, March.

    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:jogath:v:46:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s00182-016-0555-5. 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.