Learning with Episodic Hypothesis Testing in General Games: A Framework for Equilibrium Selection

Abstract: We introduce a new hypothesis testing-based learning dynamics in which players update their strategies by combining hypothesis testing with utility-driven exploration. In this dynamics, each player forms beliefs about opponents' strategies and episodically tests these beliefs using empirical observations. Beliefs are resampled either when the hypothesis test is rejected or through exploration, where the probability of exploration decreases with the player's (transformed) utility. In general finite normal-form games, we show that the learning process converges to a set of approximate Nash equilibria and, more importantly, to a refinement that selects equilibria maximizing the minimum (transformed) utility across all players. Our result establishes convergence to equilibrium in general finite games and reveals a novel mechanism for equilibrium selection induced by the structure of the learning dynamics.