Asymmetric Equilibria in Symmetric Multiplayer Prisoners Dilemma Supergames

Abstract

We propose a finite automaton-style solution concept for supergames. In our model, we define an equilibrium to be a cycle of state switches and a supergame to be an infinite walk on states of a finite stage game. We show that if the stage game is locally non-cooperative, and the utility function is monotonously decreasing as the number of defective agents increases, the symmetric multiagent prisoners' dilemma supergame must contain one symmetric equilibrium and can contain asymmetric equilibria.