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International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications

COCOA 2018: Combinatorial Optimization and Applications pp 722–738Cite as

Network Cost-Sharing Games: Equilibrium Computation and Applications to Election Modeling

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11346))

Abstract

We introduce and study a variant of network cost-sharing games with additional non-shareable costs (NCSG+), which is shown to possess a pure Nash equilibrium (PNE). We extend polynomial-time PNE computation results to a class of graphs that generalizes series-parallel graphs when the non-shareable costs are player-independent. Further, an election game model is presented based on an NCSG+ when voter opinions form natural discrete clusters. This model captures several variants of the classic Hotelling-Downs election model, including ones with limited attraction, ability of candidates to enter, change stance positions and exit any time during the campaign or abstain from the race, the restriction on candidates to access certain stance positions, and the operational costs of running a campaign. Finally, we provide a polynomial-time PNE computation for an election game when stance changes are restricted.

J. Garg—Supported by NSF CRII Award 1755619.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 104 S Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Rahul Swamy, Timothy Murray & Jugal Garg

Authors
  1. Rahul Swamy
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  2. Timothy Murray
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  3. Jugal Garg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rahul Swamy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Kennesaw State University, Marietta, GA, USA

    Donghyun Kim

  2. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, USA

    R. N. Uma

  3. Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Alexander Zelikovsky

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Swamy, R., Murray, T., Garg, J. (2018). Network Cost-Sharing Games: Equilibrium Computation and Applications to Election Modeling. In: Kim, D., Uma, R., Zelikovsky, A. (eds) Combinatorial Optimization and Applications. COCOA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11346. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04651-4_49

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04651-4_49

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04650-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04651-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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