The women of Cairo - Equilibria in large anonymous games

In this article, I characterize Nash equilibria of large anonymous games by providing the following neccessary and sufficient condition for an equilibrium distribution: for no subset K of actions more players play actions in K than have a best response in K to the given distribution. While neccessity is trivial the proof for sufficiency relies on a theorem by [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 78 (1974) 323] which is an extension of Hall's theorem or the marriage lemma well known from graph theory. The veiling problem for the women of Cairo serves as an illustrating heuristic example explaining the nature of the result. (c) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.