On the existence of fair zero-determinant strategies in the periodic prisoner's dilemma game

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence of fair zero-determinant strategies in the periodic prisoner's dilemma, revealing they do not always exist and differ from strategies in the standard repeated game.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of ZD strategies to stochastic games, specifically analyzing their existence in the periodic prisoner's dilemma, a simpler stochastic game.

Findings

Fair ZD strategies do not necessarily exist in the periodic prisoner's dilemma.

Tit-for-Tat is not always a fair ZD strategy in the periodic game.

Differences are highlighted between ZD strategies in periodic and repeated games.

Abstract

Repeated games are a framework for investigating long-term interdependence of multi-agent systems. In repeated games, zero-determinant (ZD) strategies attract much attention in evolutionary game theory, since they can unilaterally control payoffs. Especially, fair ZD strategies unilaterally equalize the payoff of the focal player and the average payoff of the opponents, and they were found in several games including the social dilemma games. Although the existence condition of ZD strategies in repeated games was specified, its extension to stochastic games is almost unclear. Stochastic games are an extension of repeated games, where a state of an environment exists, and the state changes to another one according to an action profile of players. Because of the transition of an environmental state, the existence condition of ZD strategies in stochastic games is more complicated than that in repeated games. Here, we investigate the existence condition of fair ZD strategies in the periodic prisoner's dilemma game, which is one of the simplest stochastic games. We show that fair ZD strategies do not necessarily exist in the periodic prisoner's dilemma game, in contrast to the repeated prisoner's dilemma game. Furthermore, we also prove that the Tit-for-Tat strategy, which imitates the opponent's action, is not necessarily a fair ZD strategy in the periodic prisoner's dilemma game, whereas the Tit-for-Tat strategy is always a fair ZD strategy in the repeated prisoner's dilemma game. Our results highlight difference between ZD strategies in the periodic prisoner's dilemma game and ones in the standard repeated prisoner's dilemma game.