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On Equilibrium in Pure Stategies in Games with Many Players

Author

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  • Cartwright, Edward

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Wooders, Myrna

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

Abstract

We introduce a framework of noncooperative games, allowing both countable sets of pure strategies and player types, in which players are characterized by their attributes and demonstrate that for all games with sufficiently many players, every mixed strategy Nash equilibrium can be used to construct a Nash "-equilibrium in pure strategies that is ‘"-equivalent’. Our framework introduces and exploits a distinction between crowding attributes of players (their external effects on others) and their taste attributes (their payoff functions). The set of crowding attributes is assumed to be compact; this is not required, however, for taste attributes. For the special case of at most a finite number of crowding attributes, we obtain analogs, for finite games, of purification results due to Pascoa (1993a,b,1998) for games with a continuum of players. Our main theorems are based on a new mathematical result, in the spirit of the Shapley-Folkman Theorem but applicable to a countable (not necessarily finite dimensional) strategy space.

Suggested Citation

  • Cartwright, Edward & Wooders, Myrna, 2003. "On Equilibrium in Pure Stategies in Games with Many Players," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 686, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:686
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2009. "On equilibrium in pure strategies in games with many players," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 137-153, March.
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    5. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2009. "On purification of equilibrium in Bayesian games and expost Nash equilibrium," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 127-136, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2009. "On equilibrium in pure strategies in games with many players," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 137-153, March.
    2. Guilherme Carmona, 2004. "On the Existence of Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria in Large Games," Game Theory and Information 0412008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2014. "Correlated Equilibrium, Conformity, and Stereotyping in Social Groups," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(5), pages 743-766, October.
    4. Carmona, Guilherme, 2004. "On the purification of Nash equilibria of large games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 215-219, November.
    5. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2014. "Correlated Equilibrium, Conformity, and Stereotyping in Social Groups," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(5), pages 743-766, October.
    6. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2009. "On purification of equilibrium in Bayesian games and expost Nash equilibrium," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 127-136, March.
    7. Cartwright, Edward & Wooders, Myrna, 2003. "Conformity and bounded rationality in games with many players," Economic Research Papers 269571, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    8. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2008. "Behavioral Properties of Correlated Equilibrium; Social Group Structures with Conformity and Stereotyping," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0814, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    9. Azrieli, Yaron, 2009. "Categorizing others in a large game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 351-362, November.
    10. Yaron Azrieli & Eran Shmaya, 2013. "Lipschitz Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(2), pages 350-357, May.
    11. Yang, Jian, 2022. "A Bayesian nonatomic game and its applicability to finite-player situations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    12. Gradwohl, Ronen & Reingold, Omer, 2010. "Partial exposure in large games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 602-613, March.

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    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

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