2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (165) ◽  
pp. 121-144
Author(s):  
Bozo Stojanovic

Market processes can be analyzed by means of dynamic games. In a number of dynamic games multiple Nash equilibria appear. These equilibria often involve no credible threats the implementation of which is not in the interests of the players making them. The concept of sub game perfect equilibrium rules out these situations by stating that a reasonable solution to a game cannot involve players believing and acting upon noncredible threats or promises. A simple way of finding the sub game perfect Nash equilibrium of a dynamic game is by using the principle of backward induction. To explain how this equilibrium concept is applied, we analyze the dynamic entry games.


Author(s):  
Christian Kroer ◽  
Gabriele Farina ◽  
Tuomas Sandholm

Nash equilibrium is a popular solution concept for solving imperfect-information games in practice. However, it has a major drawback: it does not preclude suboptimal play in branches of the game tree that are not reached in equilibrium. Equilibrium refinements can mend this issue, but have experienced little practical adoption. This is largely due to a lack of scalable algorithms.Sparse iterative methods, in particular first-order methods, are known to be among the most effective algorithms for computing Nash equilibria in large-scale two-player zero-sum extensive-form games. In this paper, we provide, to our knowledge, the first extension of these methods to equilibrium refinements. We develop a smoothing approach for behavioral perturbations of the convex polytope that encompasses the strategy spaces of players in an extensive-form game. This enables one to compute an approximate variant of extensive-form perfect equilibria. Experiments show that our smoothing approach leads to solutions with dramatically stronger strategies at information sets that are reached with low probability in approximate Nash equilibria, while retaining the overall convergence rate associated with fast algorithms for Nash equilibrium. This has benefits both in approximate equilibrium finding (such approximation is necessary in practice in large games) where some probabilities are low while possibly heading toward zero in the limit, and exact equilibrium computation where the low probabilities are actually zero.


2001 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 1402-1422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob K Goeree ◽  
Charles A Holt

This paper reports laboratory data for games that are played only once. These games span the standard categories: static and dynamic games with complete and incomplete information. For each game, the treasure is a treatment in which behavior conforms nicely to predictions of the Nash equilibrium or relevant refinement. In each case, however, a change in the payoff structure produces a large inconsistency between theoretical predictions and observed behavior. These contradictions are generally consistent with simple intuition based on the interaction of payoff asymmetries and noisy introspection about others' decisions. (JEL C72, C92)


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