Budget-constrained multi-battle contests: a new perspective and analysis

DOI10.1016/J.TCS.2018.01.018zbMATH Open1397.91056arXiv1602.04000OpenAlexW2963917561MaRDI QIDQ1704589FDOQ1704589

Authors: Chu-Han Cheng, Po-An Chen, Wing-Kai Hon 

Publication date: 12 March 2018

Published in: Theoretical Computer Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In a multi-battle contest, each time a player competes by investing some of her budgets or resources in a component battle to collect a value if winning the battle. There are multiple battles to fight, and the budgets get consumed over time. The final winner in the overall contest is the one who first reaches some amount of total value. Examples include R & D races, sports competition, elections, and many more. A player needs to make adequate sequential actions to win the contest against dynamic competition over time from the others. We are interested in how much budgets the players would need and what actions they should take in order to perform well. We model and study such budget-constrained multi-battle contests where each component battle is a first-price or all-pay auction. We focus on analyzing the 2-player budget ratio that guarantees a player's winning (or falling behind in just a bounded amount of collected value) against the other omnipotent player. In the settings considered, we give efficient dynamic programs to find the optimal budget ratios and the corresponding bidding strategies. Our definition of game, budget constraints, and emphasis on budget analyses provide a new perspective and analysis in the related context.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04000

Recommendations

• Contests with limited resources
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• Sequential contests with synergy and budget constraints
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zbMATH Keywords

budget constraintsmulti-battle contestsoptimal budget ratio

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Multistage and repeated games (91A20)

Cites Work

• The Colonel Blotto game
• Perfect Equilibrium in a Model of a Race
• All-Pay Contests
• Strategy and dynamics in contests
• Market structure and equilibrium. Translated from the German by Damian Bazin, Lynn Urch and Rowland Hill
• Multi-battle contests
• On a network creation game
• Multiple-object auctions with budget constrained bidders
• Racing with Uncertainty
• Contests with limited resources
• Choosing fair lotteries to defeat the competition
• Sequential auctions for common value objects with budget constrained bidders

Cited In (2)

• How good is a two-party election game?
• Two-stage contests with budget constraints: an experimental study

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