TY - GEN
T1 - The cost of stability in network flow games
AU - Resnick, Ezra
AU - Bachrach, Yoram
AU - Meir, Reshef
AU - Rosenschein, Jeffrey S.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The core of a cooperative game contains all stable distributions of a coalition's gains among its members. However, some games have an empty core, with every distribution being unstable. We allow an external party to offer a supplemental payment to the grand coalition, which may stabilize the game, if the payment is sufficiently high. We consider the cost of stability (CoS)-the minimal payment that stabilizes the game. We examine the CoS in threshold network flow games (TNFGs), where each agent controls an edge in a flow network, and a coalition wins if the maximal flow it can achieve exceeds a certain threshold. We show that in such games, it is coNP-complete to determine whether a given distribution (which includes an external payment) is stable. Nevertheless, we show how to bound and approximate the CoS in general TNFGs, and provide efficient algorithms for computing the CoS in several restricted cases.
AB - The core of a cooperative game contains all stable distributions of a coalition's gains among its members. However, some games have an empty core, with every distribution being unstable. We allow an external party to offer a supplemental payment to the grand coalition, which may stabilize the game, if the payment is sufficiently high. We consider the cost of stability (CoS)-the minimal payment that stabilizes the game. We examine the CoS in threshold network flow games (TNFGs), where each agent controls an edge in a flow network, and a coalition wins if the maximal flow it can achieve exceeds a certain threshold. We show that in such games, it is coNP-complete to determine whether a given distribution (which includes an external payment) is stable. Nevertheless, we show how to bound and approximate the CoS in general TNFGs, and provide efficient algorithms for computing the CoS in several restricted cases.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70349306524&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-03816-7_54
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-03816-7_54
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontobookanthology.conference???
AN - SCOPUS:70349306524
SN - 3642038158
SN - 9783642038150
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 636
EP - 650
BT - Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2009 - 34th International Symposium, MFCS 2009, Proceedings
T2 - 34th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2009, MFCS 2009
Y2 - 24 August 2009 through 28 August 2009
ER -