Cost Minimization for Equilibrium Transition

Abstract

In this paper, we delve into the problem of using monetary incentives to encourage players to shift from an initial Nash equilibrium to a more favorable one within a game. Our main focus revolves around computing the minimum reward required to facilitate this equilibrium transition. The game involves a single row player who possesses $m$ strategies and $k$ column players, each endowed with $n$ strategies. Our findings reveal that determining whether the minimum reward is zero is NP-complete, and computing the minimum reward becomes APX-hard. Nonetheless, we bring some positive news, as this problem can be efficiently handled if either $k$ or $n$ is a fixed constant. Furthermore, we have devised an approximation algorithm with an additive error that runs in polynomial time. Lastly, we explore a specific case wherein the utility functions exhibit single-peaked characteristics, and we successfully demonstrate that the optimal reward can be computed in polynomial time.