Equivalence of strong and coalition-proof Nash equilibria in games without spillovers (*)

Abstract

This paper examines the conditions which guarantee that the set of coalition-proof Nash equilibria coincides with the set of strong Nash equilibria in the normal form games without spillovers. We find that population monotonicity properties of the payoff functions, when the payoff of a player changes monotonically when the size of the group of players choosing the same strategy increases, are crucial to obtain the equivalence of these two solution concepts. We identify the classes of games, satisfying population monotonicity properties, which yield the equivalence of the set of coalition-proof Nash equilibria and the set of strong Nash equilibria. We also provide sufficient conditions for the equivalence result even when the population monotonicity assumptions are relaxed.