Exact and inexact penalty methods for the generalized bilevel programming problem

We consider a hierarchical system where a leader incorporates into its strategy the reaction of the follower to its decision. The follower’s reaction is quite generally represented as the solution set to a monotone variational inequality. For the solution of this nonconvex mathematical program a penalty approach is proposed, based on the formulation of the lower level variational inequality as a mathematical program. Under natural regularity conditions, we prove the exactness of a certain penalty function, and give strong necessary optimality conditions for a class of generalized bilevel programs.