Distributed Welfare Games

Jason R. Marden () and Adam Wierman ()
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Jason R. Marden: Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309
Adam Wierman: Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Operations Research, 2013, vol. 61, issue 1, 155-168

Abstract: Game-theoretic tools are becoming a popular design choice for distributed resource allocation algorithms. A central component of this design choice is the assignment of utility functions to the individual agents. The goal is to assign each agent an admissible utility function such that the resulting game possesses a host of desirable properties, including scalability, tractability, and existence and efficiency of pure Nash equilibria. In this paper we formally study this question of utility design on a class of games termed distributed welfare games. We identify several utility design methodologies that guarantee desirable game properties irrespective of the specific application domain. Lastly, we illustrate the results in this paper on two commonly studied classes of resource allocation problems: “coverage” problems and “coloring” problems.

Keywords: resource allocation; game theory; distributed control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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