Theory · game theory papers, 2023–2026

Key findings

• Theory · game theory went from 34 papers in 2023 to 126 in 2026, roughly 3.7x in three years.
• NeurIPS publishes the most Theory · game theory work: 183 papers from 2023 to 2026, 48% of the four-venue total.
• The fastest-growing overlap is with Mechanism Design: papers tagged with both rose from 1 in 2023 to 19 in 2026.
• Among the 5 topics under Theory and Statistics, it ranks #4 by 2026 paper count; the fastest grower in the group, Theory · learning theory, is up 5.6x versus 3.7x here.

Representative papers

Spread across years and venues so every edition shows up

• NeurIPS 2026A Mechanistic Investigation of Theory of Mind in a Large Language Model
• ICML 2026(Doubly) Exponential Lower Bounds for Follow the Regularized Leader in Potential Games
• ICLR 2026Infinite Horizon Markov Economies
• CVPR 2026Tackling Model Bias via Game-theoretic Multi-agent Collaboration Framework for Hateful
• NeurIPS 2025AlphaBeta is not as good as you think: a simple random games model for a better analysis of deterministic game-solving algorithms
• ICML 2025A-PSRO: A Unified Strategy Learning Method with Advantage Metric for Normal-form Games
• ICLR 2025A Theory of Initialisation's Impact on Specialisation
• CVPR 2025Dynamic Stereotype Theory Induced Micro-expression Recognition with Oriented Deformation
• NeurIPS 2024Accelerated Regularized Learning in Finite N-Person Games
• ICML 2024A Statistical Theory of Regularization-Based Continual Learning
• ICLR 2024Generative Adversarial Equilibrium Solvers
• CVPR 2024GlitchBench: Can Large Multimodal Models Detect Video Game Glitches?
• NeurIPS 2023$\varepsilon$-fractional core stability in Hedonic Games.
• ICML 2023Auxiliary Learning as an Asymmetric Bargaining Game
• ICLR 2023Computational Language Acquisition with Theory of Mind
• CVPR 2023Improving Generalization With Domain Convex Game
• NeurIPS 2026Agentic AI Design Should be Mediated to Promote Social Welfare
• ICML 2026A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Attacks on Large Language Models via Compositional Skills
• ICLR 2026On Universality of Deep Equivariant Networks
• NeurIPS 2025Approximation theory for 1-Lipschitz ResNets

All Theory · game theory papers

384 papers, page 3 of 8

101. NeurIPS 2026Learning-Augmented Mechanism Design for Facility Location under $L_p$-Norm Social Costs
102. NeurIPS 2026Linear Contextual Bandits with Quasi-Optimism
103. NeurIPS 2026Mechanism Design for AI Overviews: Creator Incentives and Long-Term Profit
104. NeurIPS 2026Network Intervention by Polling Strategic Agents
105. NeurIPS 2026Non-Linear Pricing Restores Tractability for a Data Seller
106. NeurIPS 2026On Nash Equilibria in Participatory Budgeting with Donations and Beyond
107. NeurIPS 2026Online Learning in Stabilized Linear Dynamical Games with Adversarial Disturbances
108. NeurIPS 2026Phase Transitions in Attention: A Bayesian Theory of Copy Head Emergence
109. NeurIPS 2026Prediction Under Imperfect Compression: A Theory of Approximate MDL
110. NeurIPS 2026Provably Efficient Regularized Online RLHF with Generalized Bilinear Preferences
111. NeurIPS 2026Random Matrix Theory of Early-Stopped Gradient Flow: A Transient BBP Scenario
112. NeurIPS 2026RuleSmith: Multi-Agent LLMs for Automated Game Balancing
113. NeurIPS 2026Second-Order Complexity Theory for Neural Networks
114. NeurIPS 2026Selling Information While Being an Interested Party
115. NeurIPS 2026Simultaneous Gradient Learning in First-Price Auctions
116. NeurIPS 2026The End Justifies the Mean: Linear Ranking Rules for Proportional Sequential Decisions
117. NeurIPS 2026The Long-Run Distribution of Regularized Learning in Non-Concave Games: A Large Deviations Approach
118. NeurIPS 2026The Panel Complexity of Sortition: Is 12 Angry Men Enough?
119. NeurIPS 2026The Power of Menus in Dynamic Pricing: Near Optimal Regret and Equivalence Results
120. NeurIPS 2026The Symmetries of Three-Layer ReLU Networks
121. NeurIPS 2026Toward a theory of Evaluability
122. NeurIPS 2026Toward Optimal Regret in Robust Pricing: Decoupling Corruption and Time
123. NeurIPS 2026Training-free Spatially Grounded Geometric Shape Encoding
124. NeurIPS 2026When and Why is Optimistic Multiplicative Weights Slow? The Geometry of Energy Dissipation
125. NeurIPS 2026When Symbol Names Should Not Matter: A Logistic Theory of Fresh-Symbol Classification
126. NeurIPS 2026Where Should Society Draw the Line? A Social Choice Approach to Collective Consent
127. CVPR 2025Dynamic Stereotype Theory Induced Micro-expression Recognition with Oriented Deformation
128. CVPR 2025Foundations of the Theory of Performance-Based Ranking
129. ICLR 2025A Theory of Initialisation's Impact on Specialisation
130. ICLR 2025BANGS: Game-theoretic Node Selection for Graph Self-Training
131. ICLR 2025Computational Explorations of Total Variation Distance
132. ICLR 2025Decoding Game: On Minimax Optimality of Heuristic Text Generation Strategies
133. ICLR 2025Divergence-Regularized Discounted Aggregation: Equilibrium Finding in Multiplayer Partially Observable Stochastic Games
134. ICLR 2025Efficient Online Pruning and Abstraction for Imperfect Information Extensive-Form Games
135. ICLR 2025Exact Computation of Any-Order Shapley Interactions for Graph Neural Networks
136. ICLR 2025Exploring The Loss Landscape Of Regularized Neural Networks Via Convex Duality
137. ICLR 2025Lasso Bandit with Compatibility Condition on Optimal Arm
138. ICLR 2025Last-Iterate Convergence Properties of Regret-Matching Algorithms in Games
139. ICLR 2025MAST: model-agnostic sparsified training
140. ICLR 2025On the Convergence of No-Regret Dynamics in Information Retrieval Games with Proportional Ranking Functions
141. ICLR 2025On the Expressiveness of Rational ReLU Neural Networks With Bounded Depth
142. ICLR 2025Quality over Quantity in Attention Layers: When Adding More Heads Hurts
143. ICLR 2025Re-evaluating Open-ended Evaluation of Large Language Models
144. ICLR 2025Separation Power of Equivariant Neural Networks
145. ICLR 2025Strategic Classification With Externalities
146. ICLR 2025The Complexity of Two-Team Polymatrix Games with Independent Adversaries
147. ICLR 2025When LLMs Play the Telephone Game: Cultural Attractors as Conceptual Tools to Evaluate LLMs in Multi-turn Settings
148. ICML 2025A Market for Accuracy: Classification Under Competition
149. ICML 2025A-PSRO: A Unified Strategy Learning Method with Advantage Metric for Normal-form Games
150. ICML 2025ADIOS: Antibody Development via Opponent Shaping

FAQ

How many Theory · game theory papers were published at NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML and CVPR from 2023 to 2026?

384 in total: 34 in 2023, 107 in 2024, 117 in 2025, 126 in 2026.

How many Theory · game theory papers are at NeurIPS 2026?

NeurIPS 2026 has 44 Theory · game theory papers, versus 49 the year before.

How many Theory · game theory papers are at ICLR 2026?

ICLR 2026 has 20 Theory · game theory papers, versus 19 the year before.

How many Theory · game theory papers are at ICML 2026?

ICML 2026 has 61 Theory · game theory papers, versus 47 the year before.

How many Theory · game theory papers are at CVPR 2026?

CVPR 2026 has 1 Theory · game theory papers, versus 2 the year before.

Which conference publishes the most Theory · game theory papers?

NeurIPS, with 183 papers from 2023 to 2026.