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arXiv · 2506.02520

Branch-and-Cut for Mixed-Integer Nash Equilibrium Problems

Aloïs Duguet·Tobias Harks·Martin Schmidt·Julian Schwarz
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Abstract

We study Nash equilibrium problems with mixed-integer variables in which each player solves a mixed-integer optimization problem parameterized by the rivals' strategies. We distinguish between standard Nash equilibrium problems (NEPs), where parameterization affects only the objective functions, and generalized Nash equilibrium problems (GNEPs), where strategy sets may additionally depend on rivals' strategies. We introduce a branch-and-cut (B&C) algorithm for such mixed-integer games that, upon termination, either computes a pure Nash equilibrium or decides their non-existence. Our approach reformulates the game as a bilevel problem using the Nikaido--Isoda function. We then use bilevel-optimization techniques to get a computationally tractable relaxation of this reformulation and embed it into a B&C framework. We derive sufficient conditions for the existence of suitable cuts and finite termination of our method depending on the setting. For GNEPs, we adapt the idea of intersection cuts from bilevel optimization and mixed-integer linear optimization. We can guarantee the existence of such cuts under suitable assumptions, which are particularly fulfilled for pure-integer GNEPs with decoupled concave objectives and linear coupling constraints. For NEPs, we show that suitable cuts always exist via best-response inequalities and prove that our B&C method terminates in finite time whenever the set of best-response sets is finite. We show that this condition is fulfilled for the important special cases of (i) players' cost functions being concave in their own continuous strategies and (ii) the players' cost functions only depending on their own strategy and the rivals' integer strategy components. Finally, we present preliminary numerical results for two different types of knapsack games, a game based on capacitated flow problems, and integer NEPs with quadratic objectives.

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BibTeXRIS

Aloïs Duguet, Tobias Harks, Martin Schmidt, Julian Schwarz. 2025-06-03. Branch-and-Cut for Mixed-Integer Nash Equilibrium Problems. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02520

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