International Society of Dynamic Games

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

The social value of information in times of epidemic

April 4, 2024 11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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We analyze an epidemiological model in which individuals trade the costs and benefits of self-isolation while being uncertain about both their type and the dynamics of the epidemic. We characterize the unique symmetric equilibrium and show that uncertainty can be the cause of an additional wave of infections. We calibrate our model to the COVID-19 pandemic and simulate the dynamics of the epidemic under various scenarios to illustrate the impact of uncertainty on self-isolation behaviors. We show that uncertainty about the epidemic dynamics may be welfare improving, both in terms of fraction of deaths and average payoffs. (with Dominique Baril-Tremblay and Lucie Ménager)

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

The impacts of environmental policy on industrial allocation: a transboundary pollution dynamic game

March 28, 2024 11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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This paper analyzes a dynamic game between two trading regions that face a transboundary pollution problem. We study how the distribution of firms and trade costs affect the optimal emission policy of governments and how this policy would alter the allocation of the industry. The underlying microeconomic behavior is framed within the Economic Geography literature, in particular within the Footloose Capital Model (FCM). The macroeconomic model that arises is a transboundary pollution linear-quadratic dynamic game. We find that if the damage of pollution is high (low), the region with the larger industrial share reduces (increases) its emissions per firm, and that the steady state pollution reaches a minimum (maximum) when firms are fully concentrated in one region. Additionally, the strategic decisions of governments give rise to a new agglomerative force, absent in the FCM, which could lead to industrial activity fully concentrating in a core region.

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

Guaranteed cost equilibrium in infinite horizon linear-quadratic differential games

March 7, 2024 11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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In this work, we study infinite-horizon linear-quadratic differential games with an output feedback information structure. Our motivation for studying these games arises from their applications in engineering, where players may lack access to complete state information. For example, in a large-scale networked multi-agent system, agents may only possess information about their neighboring agents. In the literature, sufficient conditions for the existence of output feedback Nash equilibria are closely related to solvability of a set of coupled algebraic Riccati equations, with the requirement that these solutions admit certain structural conditions. fulfilling these conditions poses a significant challenge, even in low-dimensional games. Given these limitations, a natural question arises regarding the existence of a broader class of output feedback strategies that adhere to an equilibrium property. Here, ‘broader’ implies that this expanded set of strategies, if it exists, encompasses the output feedback Nash strategies. To address this problem, we introduce the concept of an output feedback guaranteed cost equilibrium. These strategies not only ensure that individual costs remain bounded by a predefined threshold (a design parameter) but also maintain an equilibrium property. The design of these strategies utilizes techniques developed for suboptimal static output feedback controllers and employs linear matrix inequality-based methods for computation.