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Agents rarely act in isolation -- their behavioral history, in particular, is public to others. We seek a non-asymptotic understanding of how a leader agent should shape this history to its maximal advantage, knowing that follower agent(s)…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-05-29 Vidya Muthukumar , Anant Sahai

Reinforcement learning in multi-agent scenarios is important for real-world applications but presents challenges beyond those seen in single-agent settings. We present an actor-critic algorithm that trains decentralized policies in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-29 Shariq Iqbal , Fei Sha

In this paper, we introduce a generalization of the standard Stackelberg Games (SGs) framework: Calibrated Stackelberg Games (CSGs). In CSGs, a principal repeatedly interacts with an agent who (contrary to standard SGs) does not have direct…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-06-07 Nika Haghtalab , Chara Podimata , Kunhe Yang

Robust Reinforcement Learning (RL) focuses on improving performances under model errors or adversarial attacks, which facilitates the real-life deployment of RL agents. Robust Adversarial Reinforcement Learning (RARL) is one of the most…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-27 Peide Huang , Mengdi Xu , Fei Fang , Ding Zhao

The $1-N$ generalized Stackelberg game (single-leader multi-follower game) is intricately intertwined with the interaction between a leader and followers (hierarchical interaction) and the interaction among followers (simultaneous…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-06-12 Jaeyeon Jo , Jihwan Yu , Jinkyoo Park

We propose a novel independent and payoff-based learning framework for stochastic games that is model-free, game-agnostic, and gradient-free. The learning dynamics follow a best-response-type actor-critic architecture, where agents update…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Ahmed Said Donmez , Yuksel Arslantas , Muhammed O. Sayin

We initiate the study of structured Stackelberg games, a novel form of strategic interaction between a leader and a follower where contextual information can be predictive of the follower's (unknown) type. Motivated by applications such as…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-18 Maria-Florina Balcan , Kiriaki Fragkia , Keegan Harris

Motivated by the omnipresence of hierarchical structures in many real-world applications, this study delves into the intricate realm of bi-level games, with a specific focus on exploring local Stackelberg equilibria as a solution concept.…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-23 Marko Maljkovic , Gustav Nilsson , Nikolas Geroliminis

As a transformative general-purpose technology, AI has empowered various industries and will continue to shape our lives through ubiquitous applications. Despite the enormous benefits from wide-spread AI deployment, it is crucial to address…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-25 Na Zhang , Kun Yue , Chao Fang

Macroeconomic outcomes emerge from individuals' decisions, making it essential to model how agents interact with macro policy via consumption, investment, and labor choices. We formulate this as a dynamic Stackelberg game: the government…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-06-03 Qirui Mi , Zhiyu Zhao , Chengdong Ma , Siyu Xia , Yan Song , Mengyue Yang , Jun Wang , Haifeng Zhang

As predictive models are deployed into the real world, they must increasingly contend with strategic behavior. A growing body of work on strategic classification treats this problem as a Stackelberg game: the decision-maker "leads" in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-01 Tijana Zrnic , Eric Mazumdar , S. Shankar Sastry , Michael I. Jordan

In cooperative stochastic games multiple agents work towards learning joint optimal actions in an unknown environment to achieve a common goal. In many real-world applications, however, constraints are often imposed on the actions that can…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2020-07-14 Raghuram Bharadwaj Diddigi , Sai Koti Reddy Danda , Prabuchandran K. J. , Shalabh Bhatnagar

Automated decision-making tools increasingly assess individuals to determine if they qualify for high-stakes opportunities. A recent line of research investigates how strategic agents may respond to such scoring tools to receive favorable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-28 Keegan Harris , Hoda Heidari , Zhiwei Steven Wu

Actor-Critic based approaches were among the first to address reinforcement learning in a general setting. Recently, these algorithms have gained renewed interest due to their generality, good convergence properties, and possible biological…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2009-09-17 D. Di Castro , R. Meir

Coordination is one of the essential problems in multi-agent systems. Typically multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) methods treat agents equally and the goal is to solve the Markov game to an arbitrary Nash equilibrium (NE) when…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2020-04-07 Haifeng Zhang , Weizhe Chen , Zeren Huang , Minne Li , Yaodong Yang , Weinan Zhang , Jun Wang

In this paper, we consider a sequential stochastic Stackelberg game with two players, a leader and a follower. The follower has access to the state of the system while the leader does not. Assuming that the players act in their respective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-02-08 Rajesh K Mishra , Deepanshu Vasal , Sriram Vishwanath

This paper studies a class of dynamic Stackelberg games under open-loop information structure with constrained linear agent dynamics and quadratic utility functions. We show two important properties for this class of dynamic Stackelberg…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-08-09 Sen Li , Wei Zhang , Jianming Lian , Karanjit Kalsi

Inverse game theory is utilized to infer the cost functions of all players based on game outcomes. However, existing inverse game theory methods do not consider the learner as an active participant in the game, which could significantly…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Jianguo Chen , Jinlong Lei , Biqiang Mu , Yiguang Hong , Hongsheng Qi

The Stackelberg equilibrium solution concept describes optimal strategies to commit to: Player 1 (termed the leader) publicly commits to a strategy and Player 2 (termed the follower) plays a best response to this strategy (ties are broken…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-08-24 Branislav Bosansky , Simina Branzei , Kristoffer Arnsfelt Hansen , Peter Bro Miltersen , Troels Bjerre Sorensen

The dependency of the actor on the critic in actor-critic (AC) reinforcement learning means that AC can be characterized as a bilevel optimization (BLO) problem, also called a Stackelberg game. This characterization motivates two…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-19 Arjun Prakash , Naicheng He , Denizalp Goktas , Jacob Makar-Limanov , Amy Greenwald