Evolutionary Dynamics in Continuous-time Finite-state Mean Field Games -- Part I: Equilibria

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Pedroso, Leonardo, Agazzi, Andrea, Heemels, W. P. M. H., Salazar, Mauro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Pedroso, Leonardo
Agazzi, Andrea
Heemels, W. P. M. H.
Salazar, Mauro
author_facet Pedroso, Leonardo
Agazzi, Andrea
Heemels, W. P. M. H.
Salazar, Mauro
contents We study a dynamic game with a large population of players who choose actions from a finite set in continuous time. Each player has a state in a finite state space that evolves stochastically with their actions. A player's reward depends not only on their own state and action but also on the distribution of states and actions across the population, capturing effects such as congestion in traffic networks. While prior work in evolutionary game theory has primarily focused on static games without individual player state dynamics, we present the first comprehensive evolutionary analysis of such dynamic games. We propose an evolutionary model together with a mean field approximation of the finite-population game and establish strong approximation guarantees. We show that standard solution concepts for dynamic games lack an evolutionary interpretation, and we propose a new concept - the Mixed Stationary Nash Equilibrium (MSNE) - which admits one. We analyze the relationship between MSNE and the rest points of the mean field evolutionary model and study the evolutionary stability of MSNE.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_01452
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evolutionary Dynamics in Continuous-time Finite-state Mean Field Games -- Part I: Equilibria
Pedroso, Leonardo
Agazzi, Andrea
Heemels, W. P. M. H.
Salazar, Mauro
Systems and Control
Computer Science and Game Theory
Optimization and Control
We study a dynamic game with a large population of players who choose actions from a finite set in continuous time. Each player has a state in a finite state space that evolves stochastically with their actions. A player's reward depends not only on their own state and action but also on the distribution of states and actions across the population, capturing effects such as congestion in traffic networks. While prior work in evolutionary game theory has primarily focused on static games without individual player state dynamics, we present the first comprehensive evolutionary analysis of such dynamic games. We propose an evolutionary model together with a mean field approximation of the finite-population game and establish strong approximation guarantees. We show that standard solution concepts for dynamic games lack an evolutionary interpretation, and we propose a new concept - the Mixed Stationary Nash Equilibrium (MSNE) - which admits one. We analyze the relationship between MSNE and the rest points of the mean field evolutionary model and study the evolutionary stability of MSNE.
title Evolutionary Dynamics in Continuous-time Finite-state Mean Field Games -- Part I: Equilibria
topic Systems and Control
Computer Science and Game Theory
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01452