Backward-forward linear-quadratic mean-field games with major and minor agents

Abstract

This paper studies the backward-forward linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) games with major and minor agents (players). The state of major agent follows a linear backward stochastic differential equation (BSDE) and the states of minor agents are governed by linear forward stochastic differential equations (SDEs). The major agent is dominating as its state enters those of minor agents. On the other hand, all minor agents are individually negligible but their state-average affects the cost functional of major agent. The mean-field game in such backward-major and forward-minor setup is formulated to analyze the decentralized strategies. We first derive the consistency condition via an auxiliary mean-field SDEs and a 3x2 mixed backward-forward stochastic differential equation (BFSDE) system. Next, we discuss the wellposedness of such BFSDE system by virtue of the monotonicity method. Consequently, we obtain the decentralized strategies for major and minor agents which are proved to satisfy the epsilon-Nash equilibrium property.