Dependent Types for Extensive Games

Abstract

Extensive games are tools largely used in economics to describe decision processes ofa community of agents. In this paper we propose a formal presentation based on theproof assistant COQ which focuses mostly on infinite extensive games and theircharacteristics. COQ proposes a feature called "dependent types", which meansthat the type of an object may depend on the type of its components. For instance,the set of choices or the set of utilities of an agent may depend on the agentherself. Using dependent types, we describe formally a very general class of gamesand strategy profiles, which corresponds somewhat to what game theorists are used to.We also discuss the notions of infiniteness in game theory and how this can beprecisely described.