Inspection games with local and global allocation bounds

This article discusses a two-player noncooperative nonzero-sum inspection game. There are multiple sites that are subject to potential inspection by the first player (an inspector). The second player (potentially a violator) has to choose a vector of violation probabilities over the sites, so that the sum of these probabilities do not exceed one. An efficient method is introduced to compute all Nash equilibria parametrically in the amount of resource that is available to the inspector. Sensitivity analysis reveals nonmonotonicity of the equilibrium utility of the inspector, considered as a function of the amount of resource that is available to it; a phenomenon which is a variant of the well-known Braess paradox. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013