English

Infinite subgame perfect equilibrium in the Hausdorff difference hierarchy

Computer Science and Game Theory 2015-10-01 v2 Logic

Abstract

Subgame perfect equilibria are specific Nash equilibria in perfect information games in extensive form. They are important because they relate to the rationality of the players. They always exist in infinite games with continuous real-valued payoffs, but may fail to exist even in simple games with slightly discontinuous payoffs. This article considers only games whose outcome functions are measurable in the Hausdorff difference hierarchy of the open sets (\textit{i.e.} Δ20\Delta^0_2 when in the Baire space), and it characterizes the families of linear preferences such that every game using these preferences has a subgame perfect equilibrium: the preferences without infinite ascending chains (of course), and such that for all players aa and bb and outcomes x,y,zx,y,z we have ¬(z<ay<axx<bz<by)\neg(z <_a y <_a x \,\wedge\, x <_b z <_b y). Moreover at each node of the game, the equilibrium constructed for the proof is Pareto-optimal among all the outcomes occurring in the subgame. Additional results for non-linear preferences are presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1505.06320,
  title  = {Infinite subgame perfect equilibrium in the Hausdorff difference hierarchy},
  author = {Stephane Le Roux},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.06320},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

The alternative definition of the difference hierarchy has changed slightly

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:40:07.431Z