Population Games and Deterministic Evolutionary Dynamics

Population games describe strategic interactions among large numbers of small, anonymous agents. Behavior in these games is typically modeled dynamically, with agents occasionally receiving opportunities to switch strategies, basing their choices on simple myopic rules called revision protocols. Over finite time spans the evolution of aggregate behavior is well approximated by the solution of a differential equation. From a different point of view, every revision protocol defines a map—a deterministic evolutionary dynamic—that assigns each population game a differential equation describing the evolution of aggregate behavior in that game.