A geometric approach to the price of anarchy in nonatomic congestion games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Correa, Jose R.; Schulz, Andreas S.; Stier-Moses, Nicolas E.
• 署名单位: Columbia University; Universidad Adolfo Ibanez; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2008.01.001
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 457-469
• 关键词: Noncooperative games; nonatomic games; Congestion games; Wardrop equilibrium; Price of anarchy

摘要

We present a short. geometric proof for the price-of-anarchy results that have recently been established in a series of papers on selfish routing in multicommodity flow networks and on nonatomic congestion games. This novel proof also facilitates two new types of theoretical results: On the one hand, we give pseudo-approximation results that depend on the class of allowable cost functions. On tire other hand, we derive stronger bounds on the inefficiency of equilibria for situations in which the equilibrium costs are within reasonable limits of the fixed costs. These tighter bounds help to explain empirical observations in vehicular traffic networks. Our analysis holds in the more general context of nonatomic congestion games. which provide the framework in which we describe this work. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.