A note on Berge equilibrium

Abstract

This work is a contribution on the problem of the existence of Berge equilibrium. Abalo and Kostreva give an existence theorem for this equilibrium that appears in the papers [K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Berge equilibrium: Some recent results from fixed-point theorems, Appl. Math. Comput. 169 (2005) 624–638; K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Some existence theorems of Nash and Berge equilibria, Appl. Math. Lett. 17 (2004) 569–573]. We found that the assumptions of these theorems are not sufficient for the existence of Berge equilibrium. Indeed, we construct a game that verifies Abalo and Kostreva’s assumptions, but has no Berge equilibrium. Then we provide a condition that overcomes the problem in these theorems. Our conclusion is also valid for Radjef’s theorem, which is the basic reference for [K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Berge equilibrium: Some recent results from fixed-point theorems, Appl. Math. Comput. 169 (2005) 624–638; K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Some existence theorems of Nash and Berge equilibria, Appl. Math. Lett. 17 (2004) 569–573; K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Fixed points, Nash games and their organizations, Topol. Methods Nonlinear Anal. 8 (1996) 205–215; K.Y. Abalo, M.M. Kostreva, Equi-well-posed games, J. Optim. Theory Appl. 89 (1996) 89–99].