Approximate pure nash equilibria in weighted congestion games

Christoph Hansknecht, Max Klimm, Alexander Skopalik

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

20 Citations (Scopus)
5 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We study the existence of approximate pure Nash equilibria in weighted congestion games and develop techniques to obtain approximate potential functions that prove the existence of α-approximate pure Nash equilibria and the convergence of α-improvement steps. Specifically, we show how to obtain upper bounds for approximation factor α for a given class of cost functions. For example for concave cost functions the factor is at most 3/2, for quadratic cost functions it is at most 4/3, and for polynomial cost functions of maximal degree ℓ it is at at most ℓ + 1. For games with two players we obtain tight bounds which are as small as for example 1.054 in the case of quadratic cost functions.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
EditorsKlaus Jansen, Jose D. P. Rolim, Nikhil R. Devanur, Cristopher Moore
PublisherDagstuhl
Pages242-257
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9783939897743
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event17th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2014 and the 18th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2014 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: 4 Sept 20146 Sept 2014

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume28
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Conference

Conference17th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2014 and the 18th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2014
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period4/09/146/09/14

Keywords

  • Approximate equilibrium
  • Congestion game
  • Existence
  • Potential function
  • Pure Nash equilibrium

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