The truth behind the myth of the folk theorem

Joseph Y. Halpern, Rafael Pass, Lior Seeman

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the problem of computing an ε-Nash equilibrium in repeated games. Earlier work by Borgs et al. [2010] suggests that this problem is intractable. We show that if we make a slight change to their model - modeling the players as polynomial-time Turing machines that maintain state (rather than stateless polynomial-time Turing machines) - and make some standard cryptographic hardness assumptions (the existence of public-key encryption), the problem can actually be solved in polynomial time.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationITCS 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages543-552
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450322430
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event2014 5th Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science, ITCS 2014 - Princeton, NJ, United States
Duration: 12 Jan 201414 Jan 2014

Publication series

NameITCS 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science

Conference

Conference2014 5th Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science, ITCS 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPrinceton, NJ
Period12/01/1414/01/14

Funding

FundersFunder number
Army Research OfficeW911NF-09-1-0281
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
National Science FoundationCCF-1214844, IIS-0911036, CCF-0746990, CNS-1217821, IIS-0812045

    Keywords

    • Computing Nash equilibrium
    • Folk theorem
    • Repeated games

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