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Recent advances at the intersection of dense large graph limits and mean field games have begun to enable the scalable analysis of a broad class of dynamical sequential games with large numbers of agents. So far, results have been largely…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-02-21 Kai Cui , Heinz Koeppl

Multi-agent interactions are increasingly important in the context of reinforcement learning, and the theoretical foundations of policy gradient methods have attracted surging research interest. We investigate the global convergence of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-21 Sarath Pattathil , Kaiqing Zhang , Asuman Ozdaglar

In single-agent Markov decision processes, an agent can optimize its policy based on the interaction with environment. In multi-player Markov games (MGs), however, the interaction is non-stationary due to the behaviors of other players, so…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-10-19 Yuanheng Zhu , Dongbin Zhao , Mengchen Zhao , Dong Li

Policy gradient methods are extensively used in reinforcement learning as a way to optimize expected return. In this paper, we explore the evolution of the policy parameters, for a special class of exactly solvable POMDPs, as a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-04 Gavin McCracken , Colin Daniels , Rosie Zhao , Anna Brandenberger , Prakash Panangaden , Doina Precup

In this work, we study potential games and Markov potential games under stochastic cost and bandit feedback. We propose a variant of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm with sufficient exploration and recursive gradient estimation, which provably…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-11 Jing Dong , Baoxiang Wang , Yaoliang Yu

We propose policy gradient algorithms for solving a risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) problem in on-policy as well as off-policy settings. We consider episodic Markov decision processes, and model the risk using the broad class of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Nithia Vijayan , Prashanth L. A

While there is an extensive body of research analyzing policy gradient methods for discounted cumulative-reward MDPs, prior work on policy gradient methods for average-reward MDPs has been limited, with most existing results restricted to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-23 Jongmin Lee , Ernest K. Ryu

Multi-agent policy-gradient methods have been shown to converge locally near stable Nash equilibria. Local convergence, however, does not determine which equilibrium is reached. We study this question through basin-entry probability with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Yevhen Shcherbinin , Arina Redina , Maxim Kalpin , Vlad Kochetov

Markov games (MGs) provide a mathematical foundation for multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), enabling self-interested agents to learn their optimal policies while interacting with others in a shared environment. However, due to the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-25 Huiwen Yan , Mushuang Liu

This paper studies the finite-time horizon Markov games where the agents' dynamics are decoupled but the rewards can possibly be coupled across agents. The policy class is restricted to local policies where agents make decisions using their…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-04-11 Runyu Zhang , Yuyang Zhang , Rohit Konda , Bryce Ferguson , Jason Marden , Na Li

We address payoff-based decentralized learning in infinite-horizon zero-sum Markov games. In this setting, each player makes decisions based solely on received rewards, without observing the opponent's strategy or actions nor sharing…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Reda Ouhamma , Maryam Kamgarpour

We propose projection-free sequential algorithms for linear-quadratic dynamics games. These policy gradient based algorithms are akin to Stackelberg leadership model and can be extended to model-free settings. We show that if the leader…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-11-13 Jingjing Bu , Lillian J. Ratliff , Mehran Mesbahi

We study distributed algorithms for seeking a Nash equilibrium in a class of non-cooperative convex games with strongly monotone mappings. Each player has access to her own smooth local cost function and can communicate to her neighbors in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-10-24 Tatiana Tatarenko , Wei Shi , Angelia Nedich

Multi-agent reinforcement learning has been successfully applied to fully-cooperative and fully-competitive environments, but little is currently known about mixed cooperative/competitive environments. In this paper, we focus on a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-22 Roy Fox , Stephen McAleer , Will Overman , Ioannis Panageas

We formulate a general framework for competitive gradient-based learning that encompasses a wide breadth of multi-agent learning algorithms, and analyze the limiting behavior of competitive gradient-based learning algorithms using dynamical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-21 Eric Mazumdar , Lillian J. Ratliff , S. Shankar Sastry

Policy gradient methods are among the most effective methods in challenging reinforcement learning problems with large state and/or action spaces. However, little is known about even their most basic theoretical convergence properties,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-16 Alekh Agarwal , Sham M. Kakade , Jason D. Lee , Gaurav Mahajan

We provide a distributed algorithm to learn a Nash equilibrium in a class of non-cooperative games with strongly monotone mappings and unconstrained action sets. Each player has access to her own smooth local cost function and can…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-17 Tatiana Tatarenko , Angelia Nedich

Gradient-based approaches to direct policy search in reinforcement learning have received much recent attention as a means to solve problems of partial observability and to avoid some of the problems associated with policy degradation in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-18 Jonathan Baxter , Peter L. Bartlett

We study policy optimization for Markov decision processes (MDPs) with multiple reward value functions, which are to be jointly optimized according to given criteria such as proportional fairness (smooth concave scalarization), hard…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-19 Ruida Zhou , Tao Liu , Dileep Kalathil , P. R. Kumar , Chao Tian

Convex Markov Games (cMGs) were recently introduced as a broad class of multi-agent learning problems that generalize Markov games to settings where strategic agents optimize general utilities beyond additive rewards. While cMGs expand the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Anas Barakat , Ioannis Panageas , Antonios Varvitsiotis