Strictly Dominated Strategies in the Replicator-Mutator Dynamics

Segismundo Izquierdo () and Luis Izquierdo

Games, 2011, vol. 2, issue 3, 1-10

Abstract: The replicator-mutator dynamics is a set of differential equations frequently used in biological and socioeconomic contexts to model evolutionary processes subject to mutation, error or experimentation. The replicator-mutator dynamics generalizes the widely used replicator dynamics, which appears in this framework as the extreme case where replication is perfectly precise. This paper studies the influence of strictly dominated strategies on the location of the rest points of the replicator-mutator dynamics, at the limit where the mutation terms become arbitrarily small. It can be proved that such limit rest points for small mutation are Nash equilibria, so strictly dominated strategies do not occur at limit stationary points. However, we show through a simple case how strictly dominated strategies can have an influence on the location of the limit rest points for small mutation. Consequently, the characterization of the limit rest points of the replicator-mutator dynamics cannot in general proceed safely by readily eliminating strictly dominated strategies.

Keywords: replicator-mutator; dominated strategies; limit stationary states; limit rest points (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C C7 C70 C71 C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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