On error bounds and Newton-type methods for generalized Nash equilibrium problems

Error bounds (estimates for the distance to the solution set of a given problem) are key to analyzing convergence rates of computational methods for solving the problem in question, or sometimes even to justifying convergence itself. That said, for the generalized Nash equilibrium problems (GNEP), the theory of error bounds had not been developed in depth comparable to the fields of optimization and variational problems. In this paper, we provide a systematic approach which should be useful for verifying error bounds for both specific instances of GNEPs and for classes of GNEPs. These error bounds for GNEPs are based on more general results for constraints that involve complementarity relations and cover those (few) GNEP error bounds that existed previously, and go beyond. In addition, they readily imply a Lipschitzian stability result for solutions of GNEPs, a subject where again very little had been known. As a specific application of error bounds, we discuss Newtonian methods for solving GNEPs. While we do not propose any significantly new methods in this respect, some new insights into applicability to GNEPs of various approaches and into their convergence properties are presented. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014