Tight inefficiency bounds for perception-parameterized affine congestion games

Pieter Kleer, Guido Schäfer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We introduce a new model of congestion games that cap-tures several extensions of the classical congestion game introduced by Rosenthal in 1973. The idea here is to parameterize both the perceived cost of each player and the social cost function of the system designer. Intuitively, each player perceives the load induced by the other players by an extent of ρ ≥ 0, while the system designer estimates that each player perceives the load of all others by an extent of σ ≥ 0. For specific choices of ρ and σ, we obtain extensions such as altruistic player behav-ior, risk sensitive players and the imposition of taxes on the resources. We derive tight bounds on the price of anarchy and the price of stability for a large range of parameters. Our bounds provide a complete picture of the inefficiency of equilibria for these games. As a result, we obtain tight bounds on the price of anarchy and the price of stability for the above mentioned extensions. Our results also reveal how one should “design” the cost functions of the players in order to reduce the price of anarchy. Somewhat counterintuitively, if each player cares about all other players to the extent of ρ = 0.625 (instead of 1 in the standard setting) the price of anarchy reduces from 2.5 to 2.155 and this is best possible.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAlgorithms and Complexity - 10th International Conference, CIAC 2017, Proceedings
EditorsDimitris Fotakis, Aris Pagourtzis, Vangelis Th. Paschos
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages381-392
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783319575858
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017
Event10th International Conference on Algorithms and Complexity, CIAC 2017 - Athens, Greece
Duration: 24 May 201726 May 2017

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10236 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference10th International Conference on Algorithms and Complexity, CIAC 2017
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityAthens
Period24/05/1726/05/17

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