TY - GEN
T1 - Finding any nontrivial coarse correlated equilibrium is hard
AU - Barman, Siddharth
AU - Ligett, Katrina
PY - 2015/6/15
Y1 - 2015/6/15
N2 - One of the most appealing aspects of the (coarse) correlated equilibrium concept is that natural dynamics quickly arrive at approximations of such equilibria, even in games with many players. In addition, there exist polynomial-time algorithms that compute exact (coarse) correlated equilibria. In light of these results, a natural question is how good are the (coarse) correlated equilibria that can arise from any efficient algorithm or dynamics. In this paper we address this question, and establish strong negative results. In particular, we show that in multiplayer games that have a succinct representation, it is NP-hard to compute any coarse correlated equilibrium (or approximate coarse correlated equilibrium) with welfare strictly better than the worst possible. The focus on succinct games ensures that the underlying complexity question is interesting; many multiplayer games of interest are in fact succinct. Our results imply that, while one can efficiently compute a coarse correlated equilibrium, one cannot provide any nontrivial welfare guarantee for the resulting equilibrium, unless P = NP. We show that analogous hardness results hold for correlated equilibria, and persist under the egalitarian objective or Pareto optimality. To complement the hardness results, we develop an algorithmic framework that identifies settings in which we can efficiently compute an approximate correlated equilibrium with near-optimal welfare. We use this framework to develop an efficient algorithm for computing an approximate correlated equilibrium with near-optimal welfare in aggregative games.
AB - One of the most appealing aspects of the (coarse) correlated equilibrium concept is that natural dynamics quickly arrive at approximations of such equilibria, even in games with many players. In addition, there exist polynomial-time algorithms that compute exact (coarse) correlated equilibria. In light of these results, a natural question is how good are the (coarse) correlated equilibria that can arise from any efficient algorithm or dynamics. In this paper we address this question, and establish strong negative results. In particular, we show that in multiplayer games that have a succinct representation, it is NP-hard to compute any coarse correlated equilibrium (or approximate coarse correlated equilibrium) with welfare strictly better than the worst possible. The focus on succinct games ensures that the underlying complexity question is interesting; many multiplayer games of interest are in fact succinct. Our results imply that, while one can efficiently compute a coarse correlated equilibrium, one cannot provide any nontrivial welfare guarantee for the resulting equilibrium, unless P = NP. We show that analogous hardness results hold for correlated equilibria, and persist under the egalitarian objective or Pareto optimality. To complement the hardness results, we develop an algorithmic framework that identifies settings in which we can efficiently compute an approximate correlated equilibrium with near-optimal welfare. We use this framework to develop an efficient algorithm for computing an approximate correlated equilibrium with near-optimal welfare in aggregative games.
KW - Coarse correlated equilibrium
KW - Complexity of equilibria
KW - Price of anarchy
KW - Welfare maximization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84962052489&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1145/2764468.2764497
DO - https://doi.org/10.1145/2764468.2764497
M3 - منشور من مؤتمر
T3 - EC 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation
SP - 815
EP - 816
BT - EC 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation
T2 - 16th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, EC 2015
Y2 - 15 June 2015 through 19 June 2015
ER -