Subjective games and equilibria

Abstract

Applying the concepts of Nash, Bayesian, and correlated equilibria to the analysis of strategic interaction requires that players possess objective knowledge of the game and opponents' strategies. Such knowledge is often not available. The proposed notions of subjective games and of subjective Nash and correlated equilibria replace essential but unavailable objective knowledge by subjective assessments. When playing a subjective game repeatedly, subjective optimizers converge to a subjective equilibrium. We apply this approach to some well known examples including single- and multi-person, multi-arm bandit games and repeated Cournot oligopoly games.