A Theory of Network Games

20 Pages Posted: 24 Feb 2025

See all articles by Joseph Root

Joseph Root

University of Chicago

Evan Sadler

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics

Date Written: February 09, 2025

Abstract

We study games in which strategic interactions are bilateral in the following sense: if an opponent j switching from action s j to action s ′ j causes i's preferences between s i and s ′ i to flip for some profile of other players' actions, then player j switching from s j to s ′ j cannot cause i's preferences between s i and s ′ i to flip in the opposite direction at any alternative profile of other players' actions. Subject to richness conditions on opponent actions, this implies that for any two actions of player i, we can represent her preferences between them using a utility that is additively separable across opponents' actions. If i's preferences satisfy a stronger version of this condition, then we can represent player i's preferences over all her actions using a utility that is additively separable across opponents. Our representation theorem thus identifies substantive restrictions on players' preferences implied by standard utilities for network games.

Suggested Citation

Root, Joseph and Sadler, Evan, A Theory of Network Games (February 09, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5130393 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5130393

Joseph Root

University of Chicago ( email )

1101 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Evan Sadler (Contact Author)

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

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