How long to equilibrium? The communication complexity of uncoupled equilibrium procedures

B-Tier
Journal: Games and Economic Behavior
Year: 2010
Volume: 69
Issue: 1
Pages: 107-126

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study the question of how long it takes players to reach a Nash equilibrium in uncoupled setups, where each player initially knows only his own payoff function. We derive lower bounds on the communication complexity of reaching a Nash equilibrium, i.e., on the number of bits that need to be transmitted, and thus also on the required number of steps. Specifically, we show lower bounds that are exponential in the number of players in each one of the following cases: (1) reaching a pure Nash equilibrium; (2) reaching a pure Nash equilibrium in a Bayesian setting; and (3) reaching a mixed Nash equilibrium. We then show that, in contrast, the communication complexity of reaching a correlated equilibrium is polynomial in the number of players.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:gamebe:v:69:y:2010:i:1:p:107-126
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25