Characterizing and Computing the Set of Nash Equilibria via Vector Optimization

Abstract

What is the relation between the notion of Nash equilibria and Pareto-optimal points? It is well known that Nash equilibria do not need to be Pareto optimal, and Pareto points do not need to be Nash equilibria. However, the paper “Characterizing and Computing the Set of Nash Equilibria via Vector Optimization” by Feinstein and Rudloff takes a deeper look at the relation. It is shown that it is possible to characterize the set of all Nash equilibria as the set of all Pareto-optimal solutions of a certain vector optimization problem. This is accomplished by carefully designing the objective function and the ordering cone of the vector optimization problem such that both notions coincide. This characterization holds for all noncooperative games (nonconvex, convex, linear). It opens up a new way of computing Nash equilibria, as one can now use techniques and algorithms from vector optimization to compute the set of all Nash equilibria, which is in contrast to the classical fixed-point iterations that find just a single Nash equilibrium.