Revisiting inspection game and inspector leadership through reaction networks

The inspection game is a two‐player noncooperative game that models a situation where an inspector verifies whether the inspectee complies with the rules (on the assumption that the inspectee has the tendency to violate at least one of the rules). The usual approach in the analysis of this game seeks to find an optimal strategic inspection scheme for each of the two players yielding favorable payoffs. Recently, there have been some developments in the study of such games that use a mathematical structure known as reaction network involving a set of molecular species and the existing reactions among these species. In this paper, we use a reaction network to analyze the inspection game giving an alternative way of modeling the social situation. The molecular species play the role of the players' decision moves and their resulting gain or loss, while the reactions are the encounters of the decisions of the players which, as expected, yield payoffs. We reexamine the dynamics of the inspection game through the lens of reaction network theory and consider various situations that call for more detailed analyses such as equal or unequal reaction rates and inspection leadership. Conditions concerning reaction rates, initial population of decision species, benefits, and costs are determined in order to identify strategies that yield better payoffs both for the inspector and inspectee. These results illustrate practical insights rooted from the formulated simple game models.