Duersch, Peter ; Oechssler, Jörg ; Schipper, Burkhard C.
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Abstract
It is well known that the rock-paper-scissors game has no pure saddle point. We show that this holds more generally: A symmetric two-player zero-sum game has a pure saddle point if and only if it is not a generalized rock-paper-scissors game. Moreover, we show that every finite symmetric quasiconcave two-player zero-sum game has a pure saddle point. Further sufficient conditions for existence are provided. We apply our theory to a rich collection of examples by noting that the class of symmetric two-player zero-sum games coincides with the class of relative payoff games associated with symmetric two-player games. This allows us to derive results on the existence of a finite population evolutionary stable strategies.
| Document type: | Working paper |
|---|---|
| Date Deposited: | 30 Mar 2010 16:09 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| Faculties / Institutes: | The Faculty of Economics and Social Studies > Alfred-Weber-Institut for Economics |
| DDC-classification: | 330 Economics |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Symmetric two-player games , zero-sum games , Rock-Paper-Scissors , single-peakedness , quasiconcavity |
| Series: | Discussion Paper Series / University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics |
