A method for identifying underperforming agents in a multi-agent cooperative system includes receiving information relating to the performance of each agent in the multi-agent system, calculating an estimated extracted resource value of each agent based on the received information, comparing the estimated extracted resource value of each agent to a threshold value, calculating a performance index based on the comparison and identifying an agent as an under-performing agent based on the performance index. A system for identifying under-performing agents in a plurality of agents in a multi-agent cooperative system includes a performance analyzing processor, a communications port for receiving state information for each agent and control information for each agent, a classifier for identifying a subset of agents in the plurality of agents that are performance comparable and an optimizer configured to identify an under-performing agent of performance comparable agents and generate updated control information for the identified under-performing agent.