Programming and Verifying Subgame Perfect Mechanisms
Abstract
An extension of the WHILE-language is developed for programming game-theoretic mechanisms involving multiple agents. Examples of such mechanisms include auctions, voting procedures, and negotiation protocols. A structured operational semantics is provided in terms of extensive games of almost perfect information. Hoare-style partial correctness assertions are proposed to reason about the correctness of these mechanisms, where correctness is interpreted as the existence of a subgame perfect equilibrium. Using an extensional approach to pre- and postconditions, we show that an extension of Hoare's original calculus is sound and complete for reasoning about subgame perfect equilibria in game-theoretic mechanisms.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cs/0211002,
title = {Programming and Verifying Subgame Perfect Mechanisms},
author = {Marc Pauly},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cs/0211002},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
26 pages, 3 figures A section has been added which applies the calculus to an auction mechanism