PSC/ECO 288 Prof.

Tasos Kalandrakis
Game Theory Spring 2020

Assignment 3: Due in class Wednesday, February 12

Please write clearly and make sure to justify all your answers. This doc-
ument was written by Tasos Kalandrakis and its contents cannot be made
available to any third party or entity nor distributed through any electronic
website or other media outside the University of Rochester without the ex-
press written consent of its author.

1. (12 points total) Consider the following game:

Player 2
A B C
K 7, 4 3, 2 1, 3
Player 1 L 1, 1 2, 1 3, 3
M 3, 4 2, 4 5, 7

Find any Nash equilibria in which players mix using more than one
pure strategies with positive probability. (You only need to show work
for any equilibria you do find.) Specifically, for any such equilibrium
you find:

(a) (7 points) List all conditions (equalities and inequalities) that are
necessary and sufficient at such an equilibrium.
(b) (5 points) Solve for the equilibrium mixed strategies and show
that they satisfy these conditions.

2. (13 points total) Revisit the game from exercise 1 of Assignment

2, that is, the following n-player variant of the game of Hawk-Dove:
Each player i chooses from a set of strategies Ai = {H, D}. Payoffs
are given as follows:

• If i plays ai = H and aj = D for all players j 6= i, then i receives

2.
• If i plays ai = H and at least one other player j 6= i plays aj = H,
then i receives −1.
• If i plays ai = D, and at least one other player j 6= i plays aj = H,
then i receives 0.
• If i plays ai = D, and all other players j 6= i also play aj = D,
then i receives 1.

1
PSC/ECO 288 Prof. Tasos Kalandrakis
Game Theory Spring 2020

Consider a Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies for this game such

that each player i plays D with probability p and H with probability
1 − p.

(a) (2 points) What is the probability that exactly n − 1 out of n − 1

players following the above mixed strategy play D?
(b) (4 points) Using your answer above, write an expression for the
expected payoff of i from playing H, assuming the remaining
players play the above mixed strategy.
(c) (4 points) Do the same for the expected payoff of i from playing
D.
(d) (2 points) Using your answers above, write an equation with p
as an unknown that is necessary and sufficient for such a mixed
strategy Nash equilibrium.
(e) (1 points) Use the above equation to solve for p when n = 2.