A general theory of equilibrium behavior

Abstract

Economists were content with the concept of the Nash equilibrium as game theory's solution concept until Daskalakis, Goldberg, and Papadimitriou showed that finding a Nash equilibrium is most likely a computationally hard problem, a result that set off a deep scientific crisis. Motivated, in part, by their result, in this paper, we propose a general theory of equilibrium behavior in vector fields (and, therefore, also noncooperative games). Our line of discourse is to show that these universal in nature mathematical objects are endowed with significant structure, which we probe to unearth atypical, previously unidentified, equilibrium behavior.