No-Regret Learning in Repeated Bayesian Games

Recent price-of-anarchy analyses of games of complete information suggest that coarse correlated equilibria, which characterize outcomes resulting from no-regret learning dynamics, have near-optimal welfare. This work provides two main technical results that lift this conclusion to games of incomplete information, a.k.a., Bayesian games. First, near-optimal welfare in Bayesian games follows directly from the smoothness-based proof of near-optimal welfare in the same game when the private information is public. Second, no-regret learning dynamics converge to Bayesian coarse correlated equilibrium in these incomplete information games. These results are enabled by interpretation of a Bayesian game as a stochastic game of complete information.

[1]  Robert J . Aumann,et al.  28. Mixed and Behavior Strategies in Infinite Extensive Games , 1964 .

[2]  F. Forges,et al.  Five legitimate definitions of correlated equilibrium in games with incomplete information , 1993 .

[3]  Christos H. Papadimitriou,et al.  Worst-case equilibria , 1999 .

[4]  Adrian Vetta,et al.  Nash equilibria in competitive societies, with applications to facility location, traffic routing and auctions , 2002, The 43rd Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, 2002. Proceedings..

[5]  John N. Tsitsiklis,et al.  Efficiency loss in a network resource allocation game: the case of elastic supply , 2005, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[6]  Mohammad Taghi Hajiaghayi,et al.  Regret minimization and the price of total anarchy , 2008, STOC.

[7]  Allan Borodin,et al.  Price of anarchy for greedy auctions , 2009, SODA '10.

[8]  D. Bergemann,et al.  Correlated Equilibrium in Games with Incomplete Information , 2011 .

[9]  Vasilis Syrgkanis,et al.  Bayesian Games and the Smoothness Framework , 2012, ArXiv.

[10]  Tim Roughgarden,et al.  The price of anarchy in games of incomplete information , 2012, EC '12.

[11]  Evangelos Markakis,et al.  Inefficiency of Standard Multi-unit Auctions , 2013, ESA.

[12]  Éva Tardos,et al.  Composable and efficient mechanisms , 2012, STOC '13.

[13]  Renato Paes Leme,et al.  Bounding the inefficiency of outcomes in generalized second price auctions , 2012, J. Econ. Theory.

[14]  Tim Roughgarden,et al.  Intrinsic Robustness of the Price of Anarchy , 2015, J. ACM.