Stochastic evolutionary public goods game with first and second order costly punishments in finite populations

We study the stochastic evolutionary public goods game with punishment in a finite size population. Two kinds of costly punishments are considered, i.e., first-order punishment in which only the defectors are punished, and second-order punishment in which both the defectors and the cooperators who do not punish the defective behaviors are punished. We focus on the stochastic stable equilibrium of the system. In the population, the evolutionary process of strategies is described as a finite state Markov process. The evolutionary equilibrium of the system and its stochastic stability are analyzed by the limit distribution of the Markov process. By numerical experiments, our findings are as follows.（i） The first-order costly punishment can change the evolutionary dynamics and equilibrium of the public goods game, and it can promote cooperation only when both the intensity of punishment and the return on investment parameters are large enough.（ii）Under the first-order punishment, the further imposition of the second-order punishment cannot change the evolutionary dynamics of the system dramatically, but can only change the probability of the system to select the equilibrium points in the ＂C＋P＂ states, which refer to the co-existence states of cooperation and punishment. The second-order punishment has limited roles in promoting cooperation, except for some critical combinations of parameters.（iii） When the system chooses＂C＋P＂ states with probability one, the increase of the punishment probability under second-order punishment will further increase the proportion of the ＂P＂ strategy in the ＂C＋P＂ states.

Environment-Dependent Payoffs in Finite Populations

In finite population games with weak selection and large population size, when the payoff matrix is constant, the one-third law serves as the condition of a strategy to be advantageous. We generalize the result to the cases of environment-dependent payoff matrices which exhibit the feedback from the environment to the population. Finally, a more general law about cooperation-dominance is obtained.

Some Analytical Properties of the Model for Stochastic Evolutionary Games in Finite Populations with Non-uniform Interaction Rate

Traditional evolutionary games assume uniform interaction rate, which means that the rate at which individuals meet and interact is independent of their strategies. But in some systems, especially biological systems, the players interact with each other discriminately. Taylor and Nowak (2006) were the first to establish the corresponding non-uniform interaction rate model by allowing the interaction rates to depend on strategies. Their model is based on replicator dynamics which assumes an infinite size population. But in reality, the number of individuals in the population is always finite, and there will be some random interference in the individuals' strategy selection process. Therefore, it is more practical to establish the corresponding stochastic evolutionary model in finite populations. In fact, the analysis of evolutionary games in a finite size population is more difficult. Just as Taylor and Nowak said in the outlook section of their paper, 'The analysis of non-uniform interaction rates should be extended to stochastic game dynamics of finite populations.' In this paper, we are exactly doing this work. We extend Taylor and Nowak's model from infinite to finite case, especially focusing on the influence of non-uniform connection characteristics on the evolutionary stable state of the system. We model the strategy evolutionary process of the population by a continuous ergodic Markov process. Based on the limit distribution of the process, we can give the evolutionary stable state of the system. We make a complete classification of the symmetric 2×2 games. For each case game, the corresponding limit distribution of the Markov-based process is given when noise intensity is small enough. In contrast with most literatures in evolutionary games using the simulation method, all our results obtained are analytical. Especially, in the dominant-case game, coexistence of the two strategies may become evolutionary stable states in our model. This result can be used to explain the emergence of cooperation in the Prisoner is Dilemma Games to some extent. Some specific examples are given to illustrate our results.

An Information-Theoretic Approach to Effective Inference for Z-functionals

In this paper, through an information-theoretic approach, we construct estimations and confidence intervals of Z-functionals involving finite population and with the presence of auxiliary information. In particular, we give a method of estimating the variance of finite population with known mean. The modified estimates and confidence intervals for Z-functionals can adequately use the auxiliary information, at least not worse than what the standard ones do. A simulation study is presented to assess the performance of the modified estimates for the finite sample case.