Efficient equilibria in a public goods game

Zohar Komarovsky, Vadim Levit, Tal Grinshpoun, Amnon Meisels

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

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

The "best-shot" public goods game is a network game, defined on a social network. As in most strategic games, it contains a structured tradeoff between stability and efficiency. The present study considers a multi-agent system, in which each agent represents a player in the "best-shot" game. It is demonstrated that any Pure-strategy Nash Equilibrium (PNE) of the "best-shot" game is Pareto efficient and that best-response dynamics converge into a PNE within a linear number of steps. It is also shown that the game is a potential game. The potential function can be utilized for the search of PNEs with certain social properties. In order to improve efficiency beyond the limited set of stable states, a mechanism of side payments is proposed. We prove that by using side payments an outcome that maximizes social welfare can be stabilized. A distributed protocol based on asymmetric distributed constraints optimization, which enables the search for efficient outcomes, is proposed. Finally, an extensive experimental evaluation compares the actual social welfare in outcomes achieved by different search paradigms for common social networks structures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, WI-IAT 2015
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages214-219
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781467396172
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Feb 2016
Event2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology Workshops, WI-IAT Workshops 2015 - Singapore, Singapore
Duration: 6 Dec 20159 Dec 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, WI-IAT 2015
Volume2

Conference

Conference2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology Workshops, WI-IAT Workshops 2015
Country/TerritorySingapore
CitySingapore
Period6/12/159/12/15

Keywords

  • ADCOP
  • Efficient equilibria
  • Public goods games
  • Side payments

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