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Stackelberg Games: The Price of Optimum

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Algorithms

  • 160 Accesses

Years and Authors of Summarized Original Work

  • 2006; Kaporis, Spirakis

Problem Definition

Stackelberg games [15] may model the interplay among an authority and rational individuals that selfishly demand resources on a large-scale network. In such a game, the authority (Leader) of the network is modeled by a distinguished player. The selfish users (Followers) are modeled by the remaining players.

It is well known that selfish behavior may yield a Nash Equilibrium with cost arbitrarily higher than the optimum one, yielding unbounded Coordination Ratio or Price of Anarchy (PoA) [7, 13]. Leader plays his strategy first assigning a portion of the total demand to some resources of the network. Followers observe and react selfishly assigning their demand to the most appealing resources. Leader aims to drive the system to an a posteriori Nash equilibrium with cost close to the overall optimum one [4, 6, 8, 10]. Leader may also be eager for his own rather than system’s performance [2, 3].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, University of the Aegean, Gorgyras & Palama 2, 83200, Karlovasi, Samos, Greece

    Alexis Kaporis

  2. Computer Engineering and Informatics, Research and Academic Computer Technology Institute, Patras University, GR 265 00, Patras, Greece

    Paul (Pavlos) Spirakis

  3. Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Paul (Pavlos) Spirakis

  4. Computer Technology Institute (CTI), Patras, Greece

    Paul (Pavlos) Spirakis

Authors
  1. Alexis Kaporis
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  2. Paul (Pavlos) Spirakis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexis Kaporis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Ming-Yang Kao

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Kaporis, A., Spirakis, P.(. (2016). Stackelberg Games: The Price of Optimum. In: Kao, MY. (eds) Encyclopedia of Algorithms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2864-4_398

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