The El Farol Problem and the Internet: Congestion and Coordination Failure

Ann M. Bell () and William A. Sethares ()
Additional contact information
Ann M. Bell: Caelum Research
William A. Sethares: University of Wisconsin, Madison

No 812, Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 from Society for Computational Economics

Abstract: The El Farol or bar attendance problem provides a simple paradigm for analyzing public goods like the Internet, which may simultaneously suffer from congestion and coordination problems. This paper reviews the El Farol problem and surveys previous solutions, which typically involve complex learning algorithms. A simple adaptive strategy is proposed, and the strategy is investigated by simulation. The algorithm is analyzed in a few simple cases.

Date: 1999-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind
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