ABSTRACT
In the fi rst two chapters we saw that when either player in a noncooperative, one-time, static game has a dominant strategy, a unique Nash equilibrium strategy profi le will exist. If neither player has a dominant strategy, the game may have multiple Nash equilibria, or may not have a Nash equilibrium at all. When this happens, do players have any recourse other than using an arbitrary decision rule, such as adopting a maximin or minimax regret strategy? There is a substantial body of literature that attempts to identify the conditions whereby a single strategy profi le emerges as being the most plausible. These conditions usually have something to do with the context within which the game is played, the nature of the relationships between and among the players, or some shared interest that leads players to “zero in” on a particular strategy profi le. While formalizing these conditions has proven to be elusive, it may still be possible to identify a unique, pure-strategy Nash equilibrium.
