# Survival of dominated strategies under imitation dynamics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.08416 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.08416/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Sep 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Nested replicator dynamics, nested logit choice, and similarity-based learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17815/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The literature on evolutionary game theory suggests that pure strategies that are strictly dominated by other pure strategies always become extinct under imitative game dynamics, but they can survive under innovative dynamics. As we explain, this is because innovative dynamics favour rare strategies while standard imitative dynamics do not. However, as we also show, there are reasonable imitation protocols that favour rare or frequent strategies, thus allowing strictly dominated strategies to survive in large classes of imitation dynamics. Dominated strategies can persist at nontrivial frequencies even when the level of domination is not small.