Generalized Nash equilibrium problems with mixed-integer variables

Abstract We consider generalized Nash equilibrium problems (GNEPs) with non-convex strategy spaces and non-convex cost functions. This general class of games includes the important case of games with mixed-integer variables for which only a few results are known in the literature. We present a new approach to characterize equilibria via a convexification technique using the Nikaido–Isoda function. To any given instance of the GNEP, we construct a set of convexified instances and show that a feasible strategy profile is an equilibrium for the original instance if and only if it is an equilibrium for any convexified instance and the convexified cost functions coincide with the initial ones. We develop this convexification approach along three dimensions: We first show that for quasi-linear models, where a convexified instance exists in which for fixed strategies of the opponent players, the cost function of every player is linear and the respective strategy space is polyhedral, the convexification reduces the GNEP to a standard (non-linear) optimization problem. Secondly, we derive two complete characterizations of those GNEPs for which the convexification leads to a jointly constrained or a jointly convex GNEP, respectively. These characterizations require new concepts related to the interplay of the convex hull operator applied to restricted subsets of feasible strategies and may be interesting on their own. Note that this characterization is also computationally relevant as jointly convex GNEPs have been extensively studied in the literature. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our results by presenting a numerical study regarding the computation of equilibria for three classes of GNEPs related to integral network flows and discrete market equilibria.