Price of Stability in Games of Incomplete Information

TL;DR

This paper investigates the robustness of the price of stability in potential games under incomplete information, showing that approximate equilibria with low social cost persist if certain algorithmic conditions are met.

Contribution

It establishes a connection between potential method-based equilibrium existence proofs and Bayesian equilibria in incomplete information settings, using strict cost-sharing schemes.

Findings

Existence of $O( ext{log}(n))$-approximate Bayes-Nash equilibria in Bayesian network design games.

Applicability to Bayesian versions of well-studied complete information games.

Extension of price of stability results to incomplete information scenarios.

Abstract

We address the question of whether price of stability results (existence of equilibria with low social cost) are robust to incomplete information. We show that this is the case in potential games, if the underlying algorithmic social cost minimization problem admits a constant factor approximation algorithm via strict cost-sharing schemes. Roughly, if the existence of an $\alpha$-approximate equilibrium in the complete information setting was proven via the potential method, then there also exists a $\alpha\cdot \beta$-approximate Bayes-Nash equilibrium in the incomplete information setting, where $\beta$ is the approximation factor of the strict-cost sharing scheme algorithm. We apply our approach to Bayesian versions of the archetypal, in the price of stability analysis, network design models and show the existence of $O(\log(n))$-approximate Bayes-Nash equilibria in several games whose complete information counterparts have been well-studied, such as undirected network design games, multi-cast games and covering games.