Compactification of Extensive Game Structures and Backward Dominance Procedure

Abstract

We study the relationship between invariant transformations on extensive game structures and backward dominance procedure (BD), a generalization of the classical backward induction introduced in Perea (2014). We show that behavioral equivalence with unambiguous orderings of information sets, a critical property that guarantees BD's applicability, can be characterized by the classical Coalescing and a modified Interchange/Simultanizing in Battigalli et al. (2020). We also give conditions on transformations that improve BD's efficiency. In addition, we discuss the relationship between transformations and Bonanno (2014)'s generalized backward induction.