A polynomial-time nash equilibrium algorithm for repeated games

  • Authors:
  • Michael L. Littman;Peter Stone

  • Affiliations:
  • Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ;The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 4th ACM conference on Electronic commerce
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

With the increasing reliance on game theory as a foundation for auctions and electronic commerce, efficient algorithms for computing equilibria in multiplayer general-sum games are of great theoretical and practical interest. The computational complexity of finding a Nash equilibrium for a one-shot bimatrix game is a well known open problem. This paper treats a closely related problem, that of finding a Nash equilibrium for an average-payoff phrepeated bimatrix game, and presents a polynomial-time algorithm. Our approach draws on the "folk theorem" from game theory and shows how finite-state equilibrium strategies can be found efficiently and expressed succinctly.