cost share connect game
player number
singl sourc and sink
singl sourc multipl sink
multi sourc and sink
edg cost
fair connect game
gener connect game
graph topolog
strong equilibrium
coalit
specif cost
extens parallel graph
optim solut
game theori
nash equilibrium
anarchi price
strong price of anarchi
network design
cost share game

Strong Equilibrium in Cost Sharing Connection Games∗ Amir Epstein School of Computer Science Tel-Aviv University Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel amirep@tau.ac.il Michal Feldman School of Computer Science The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, 91904, Israel mfeldman@cs.huji.ac.il Yishay Mansour School of Computer Science Tel-Aviv University Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel mansour@tau.ac.il ABSTRACT In this work we study cost sharing connection games, where each player has a source and sink he would like to connect, and the cost of the edges is either shared equally (fair connection games) or in an arbitrary way (general connection games).
We study the graph topologies that guarantee the existence of a strong equilibrium (where no coalition can improve the cost of each of its members) regardless of the specific costs on the edges.
Our main existence results are the following: (1) For a single source and sink we show that there is always a strong equilibrium (both for fair and general connection games).
(2) For a single source multiple sinks we show that for a series parallel graph a strong equilibrium always exists (both for fair and general connection games).
(3) For multi source and sink we show that an extension parallel graph always admits a strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
As for the quality of the strong equilibrium we show that in any fair connection games the cost of a strong equilibrium is Θ(log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
(This should be contrasted with the Ω(n) price of anarchy for the same setting.)
For single source general connection games and single source single sink fair connection games, we show that a strong equilibrium is always an optimal solution.
Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems; F.2.0 [Analysis of Algorithms and Problem Complexity]: General; J.4 [Social and Behavioral Sciences]: Economics; K.4.4 [Electronic Commerce]: Payment schemes General Terms Theory, Economics, Algorithms 1.
INTRODUCTION Computational game theory has introduced the issue of incentives to many of the classical combinatorial optimization problems.
The view that the demand side is many times not under the control of a central authority that optimizes the global performance, but rather under the control of individuals with different incentives, has led already to many important insights.
Consider classical routing and transportation problems such as multicast or multi-commodity problems, which are many times viewed as follows.
We are given a graph with edge costs and connectivity demands between nodes, and our goal is to find a minimal cost solution.
The classical centralized approach assumes that all the individual demands can both be completely coordinated and have no individual incentives.
The game theory point of view would assume that each individual demand is controlled by a player that optimizes its own utility, and the resulting outcome could be far from the optimal solution.
When considering individual incentives one needs to discuss the appropriate solution concept.
Much of the research in computational game theory has focused on the classical Nash equilibrium as the primary solution concept.
Indeed Nash equilibrium has many benefits, and most importantly it always exists (in mixed strategies).
However, the solution concept of Nash equilibrium is resilient only to unilateral deviations, while in reality, players may be able to coordinate their actions.
A strong equilibrium [4] is a state from which no coalition (of any size) can deviate and improve the utility of every member of the coalition (while possibly lowering the utility 84 of players outside the coalition).
This resilience to deviations by coalitions of the players is highly attractive, and one can hope that once a strong equilibrium is reached it is highly likely to sustain.
From a computational game theory point of view, an additional benefit of a strong equilibrium is that it has a potential to reduce the distance between the optimal solution and the solution obtained as an outcome of selfish behavior.
The strong price of anarchy (SPoA), introduced in [1], is the ratio between the cost of the worst strong equilibrium and the cost of an optimal solution.
Obviously, SPoA is meaningful only in those cases where a strong equilibrium exists.
A major downside of strong equilibrium is that most games do not admit any strong equilibrium.
Even simple classical games like the prisoner``s dilemma do not posses any strong equilibrium (which is also an example of a congestion game that does not posses a strong equilibrium1 ).
This unfortunate fact has reduced the concentration in strong equilibrium, despite its highly attractive properties.
Yet, [1] have identified two broad families of games, namely job scheduling and network formation, where a strong equilibrium always exists and the SPoA is significantly lower than the price of anarchy (which is the ratio between the worst Nash equilibrium and the optimal solution [15, 18, 5, 6]).
In this work we concentrate on cost sharing connection games, introduced by [3, 2].
In such a game, there is an underlying directed graph with edge costs, and individual users have connectivity demands (between a source and a sink).
We consider two models.
The fair cost connection model [2] allows each player to select a path from the source to the sink2 .
In this game the cost of an edge is shared equally between all the players that selected the edge, and the cost of the player is the sum of its costs on the edges it selected.
The general connection game [3] allows each player to offer prices for edges.
In this game an edge is bought if the sum of the offers at least covers its cost, and the cost of the player is the sum of its offers on the bought edges (in both games we assume that the player has to guarantee the connectivity between its source and sink).
In this work we focus on two important issues.
The first one is identifying under what conditions the existence of a strong equilibrium is guaranteed, and the second one is the quality of the strong equilibria.
For the existence part, we identify families of graph topologies that possess some strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs.
One can view this separation between the graph topology and the edge costs, as a separation between the underlying infrastructure and the costs the players observe to purchase edges.
While one expects the infrastructure to be stable over long periods of time, the costs the players observe can be easily modified over short time periods.
Such a topological characterization of the underlying infrastructure provides a network designer topological conditions that will ensure stability in his network.
Our results are as follows.
For the single commodity case (all the players have the same source and sink), there is a strong equilibrium in any graph (both for fair and general connection games).
Moreover, the strong equilibrium is also 1 while any congestion game is known to admit at least one Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [16].
2 The fair cost sharing scheme is also attractive from a mechanism design point of view, as it is a strategyproof costsharing mechanism [14].
the optimal solution (namely, the players share a shortest path from the common source to the common sink).
For the case of a single source and multiple sinks (for example, in a multicast tree), we show that in a fair connection game there is a strong equilibrium if the underlying graph is a series parallel graph, and we show an example of a nonseries parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
For the case of multi-commodity (multi sources and sinks), we show that in a fair connection game if the graph is an extension parallel graph then there is always a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a series parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
As far as we know, we are the first to provide a topological characterization for equilibrium existence in multi-commodity and single-source network games.
For any fair connection game we show that if there exists a strong equilibrium it is at most a factor of Θ(log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
This should be contrasted with the Θ(n) bound that exists for the price of anarchy [2].
For single source general connection games, we show that any series parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
In this case we also show that any strong equilibrium is optimal.
Related work Topological characterizations for single-commodity network games have been recently provided for various equilibrium properties, including equilibrium existence [12, 7, 8], equilibrium uniqueness [10] and equilibrium efficiency [17, 11].
The existence of pure Nash equilibrium in single-commodity network congestion games with player-specific costs or weights was studied in [12].
The existence of strong equilibrium was studied in both utility-decreasing (e.g., routing) and utility-increasing (e.g., fair cost-sharing) congestion games.
[7, 8] have provided a full topological characterization for a SE existence in single-commodity utility-decreasing congestion games, and showed that a SE always exists if and only if the underlying graph is extension-parallel.
[19] have shown that in single-commodity utility-increasing congestion games, the topological characterization is essentially equivalent to parallel links.
In addition, they have shown that these results hold for correlated strong equilibria as well (in contrast to the decreasing setting, where correlated strong equilibria might not exist at all).
While the fair cost sharing games we study are utility increasing network congestion games, we derive a different characterization than [19] due to the different assumptions regarding the players'' actions.3 2.
MODEL 2.1 Game Theory definitions A game Λ =< N, (Σi), (ci) > has a finite set N = {1, ... , n} of players.
Player i ∈ N has a set Σi of actions, the joint action set is Σ = Σ1 × · · · × Σn and a joint action S ∈ Σ is also called a profile.
The cost function of player i is 3 In [19] they allow to restrict some players from using certain links, even though the links exist in the graph, while we do not allow this, and assume that the available strategies for players are fully represented by the underlying graph.
85 ci : Σ → R+ , which maps the joint action S ∈ Σ to a non-negative real number.
Let S = (S1, ... , Sn) denote the profile of actions taken by the players, and let S−i = (S1, ... , Si−1, Si+1, ... , Sn) denote the profile of actions taken by all players other than player i. Note that S = (Si, S−i).
The social cost of a game Λ is the sum of the costs of the players, and we denote by OPT(Λ) the minimal social cost of a game Λ.
i.e., OPT(Λ) = minS∈Σ costΛ(S), where costΛ(S) = i∈N ci(S).
A joint action S ∈ Σ is a pure Nash equilibrium if no player i ∈ N can benefit from unilaterally deviating from his action to another action, i.e., ∀i ∈ N ∀Si ∈ Σi : ci(S−i, Si) ≥ ci(S).
We denote by NE(Λ) the set of pure Nash equilibria in the game Λ.
Resilience to coalitions: A pure deviation of a set of players Γ ⊂ N (also called coalition) specifies an action for each player in the coalition, i.e., γ ∈ ×i∈ΓΣi.
A joint action S ∈ Σ is not resilient to a pure deviation of a coalition Γ if there is a pure joint action γ of Γ such that ci(S−Γ, γ) < ci(S) for every i ∈ Γ (i.e., the players in the coalition can deviate in such a way that each player in the coalition reduces its cost).
A pure Nash equilibrium S ∈ Σ is a k-strong equilibrium, if there is no coalition Γ of size at most k, such that S is not resilient to a pure deviation by Γ.
We denote by k-SE(Λ) the set of k-strong equilibria in the game Λ.
We denote by SE(Λ) the set of n-strong equilibria, and call S ∈ SE(Λ) a strong equilibrium (SE).
Next we define the Price of Anarchy [9], Price of Stability [2], and their extension to Strong Price of Anarchy and Strong Price of Stability.
of anarchy (k-SPoA) for the game Λ.
The Price of Anarchy (PoA) is the ratio between the maximal cost of a pure Nash equilibrium (assuming one exists) and the social optimum, i.e., maxS∈NE(Λ) costΛ(S) /OPT(Λ).
Similarly, the Price of Stability (PoS) is the ratio between the minimal cost of a pure Nash equilibrium and the social optimum, i.e., minS∈NE(Λ) costΛ(S)/OPT(Λ).
The k-Strong Price of Anarchy (k-SPoA) is the ratio between the maximal cost of a k-strong equilibrium (assuming one exists) and the social optimum, i.e., maxS∈k-SE(Λ) costΛ(S) /OPT(Λ).
The SPoA is the n-SPoA.
Similarly, the Strong Price of Stability (SPoS) is the ratio between the minimal cost of a pure strong equilibrium and the social optimum, i.e., minS∈SE(Λ) costΛ(S)/OPT(Λ).
Note that both k-SPoA and SPoS are defined only if some strong equilibrium exists.
2.2 Cost Sharing Connection Games A cost sharing connection game has an underlying directed graph G = (V, E) where each edge e ∈ E has an associated cost ce ≥ 04 .
In a connection game each player i ∈ N has an associated source si and sink ti.
In a fair connection game the actions Σi of player i include all the paths from si to ti.
The cost of each edge is shared equally by the set of all players whose paths contain it.
Given a joint action, the cost of a player is the sum of his costs on the edges it selected.
More formally, the cost function of each player on an edge e, in a joint action S, is fe(ne(S)) = ce ne(S) , where ne(S) is the number of players that selected a path containing edge e in S.
The cost of player i, when selecting path Qi ∈ Σi is ci(S) = e∈Qi fe(ne(S)).
4 In some of the existence proofs, we assume that ce > 0 for simplicity.
The full version contains the complete proofs for the case ce ≥ 0.
In a general connection game the actions Σi of player i is a payment vector pi, where pi(e) is how much player i is offering to contribute to the cost of edge e.5 Given a profile p, any edge e such that i pi(e) ≥ ce is considered bought, and Ep denotes the set of bought edges.
Let Gp = (V, Ep) denote the graph bought by the players for profile p = (p1, ... , pn).
Clearly, each player tries to minimize his total payment which is ci(p) = e∈Ep pi(e) if si is connected to ti in Gp, and infinity otherwise.6 We denote by c(p) = i ci(p) the total cost under the profile p. For a subgraph H of G we denote the total cost of the edges in H by c(H).
A symmetric connection game implies that the source and sink of all the players are identical.
(We also call a symmetric connection game a single source single sink connection game, or a single commodity connection game.)
A single source connection game implies that the sources of all the players are identical.
Finally, A multi commodity connection game implies that each player has its own source and sink.
2.3 Extension Parallel and Series Parallel Directed Graphs Our directed graphs would be acyclic, and would have a source node (from which all nodes are reachable) and a sink node (which every node can reach).
We first define the following actions for composition of directed graphs.
• Identification: The identification operation allows to collapse two nodes to one.
More formally, given graph G = (V, E) we define the identification of a node v1 ∈ V and v2 ∈ V forming a new node v ∈ V as creating a new graph G = (V , E ), where V = V −{v1, v2}∪{v} and E includes the edges of E where the edges of v1 and v2 are now connected to v. • Parallel composition: Given two directed graphs, G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2), with sources s1 ∈ V1 and s2 ∈ V2 and sinks t1 ∈ V1 and t2 ∈ V2, respectively, we define a new graph G = G1||G2 as follows.
Let G = (V1 ∪ V2, E1 ∪ E2) be the union graph.
To create G = G1||G2 we identify the sources s1 and s2, forming a new source node s, and identify the sinks t1 and t2, forming a new sink t. • Series composition: Given two directed graphs, G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2), with sources s1 ∈ V1 and s2 ∈ V2 and sinks t1 ∈ V1 and t2 ∈ V2, respectively, we define a new graph G = G1 → G2 as follows.
Let G = (V1 ∪ V2, E1 ∪ E2) be the union graph.
To create G = G1 → G2 we identify the vertices t1 and s2, forming a new vertex u.
The graph G has a source s = s1 and a sink t = t2.
• Extension composition : A series composition when one of the graphs, G1 or G2, is composed of a single directed edge is an extension composition, and we denote it by G = G1 →e G2.
An extension parallel graph (EPG) is a graph G consisting of either: (1) a single directed edge (s, t), (2) a graph G = G1||G2 or (3) a graph G = G1 →e G2, where G1 and G2 are 5 We limit the players to select a path connecting si to ti and payment only on those edges.
6 This implies that in equilibrium every player has its sink and source connected by a path in Gp.
86 extension parallel graphs (and in the extension composition either G1 or G2 is a single edge.)
.
A series parallel graph (SPG) is a graph G consisting of either: (1) a single directed edge (s, t), (2) a graph G = G1||G2 or (3) a graph G = G1 → G2, where G1 and G2 are series parallel graphs.
Given a path Q and two vertices u, v on Q, we denote the subpath of Q from u to v by Qu,v.
The following lemma, whose proof appears in the full version, would be the main topological tool in the case of single source graph.
Lemma 2.1.
Let G be an SPG with source s and sink t. Given a path Q, from s to t, and a vertex t , there exist a vertex y ∈ Q, such that for any path Q from s to t , the path Q contains y and the paths Qy,t and Q are edge disjoint.
(We call the vertex y the intersecting vertex of Q and t .)
3.
FAIR CONNECTION GAMES This section derives our results for fair connection games.
3.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium While it is known that every fair connection game possesses a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [2], this is not necessarily the case for a strong equilibrium.
In this section, we study the existence of strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
We begin with a simple case, showing that every symmetric fair connection game possesses a strong equilibrium.
Theorem 3.1.
In every symmetric fair connection game there exists a strong equilibrium.
Proof.
Let s be the source and t be the sink of all the players.
We show that a profile S in which all the players choose the same shortest path Q (from the source s to the sink t ) is a strong equilibrium.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then there is a coalition Γ that can deviate to a new profile S such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Let Qj be a new path used by player j ∈ Γ.
Since Q is a shortest path, it holds that c(Qj \ (Q ∩ Qj)) ≥ c(Q \ (Q ∩ Qj)), for any path Qj.
Therefore for every player j ∈ Γ we have that cj(S ) ≥ cj(S).
However, this contradicts the fact that all players in Γ reduce their cost.
(In fact, no player in Γ has reduced its cost.)
While every symmetric fair connection game admits a SE, it does not hold for every fair connection game.
In what follows, we study the network topologies that admit a strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs, and give examples of topologies for which a strong equilibrium does not exist.
The following lemma, whose proof appears in the full version, plays a major role in our proofs of the existence of SE.
Lemma 3.2.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on a series parallel graph G with source s and sink t. Assume that player i has si = s and ti = t and that Λ has some SE.
Let S be a SE that minimizes the cost of player i (out of all SE), i.e., ci(S) = minT ∈SE(Λ) ci(T) and let S∗ be the profile that minimizes the cost of player i (out of all possible profiles), i.e., ci(S∗ ) = minT ∈Σ ci(T).
Then, ci(S) = ci(S∗ ).
The next lemma considers parallel composition.
Lemma 3.3.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on graph G = G1||G2, where G1 and G2 are series parallel graphs.
If every fair connection game on the graphs G1 and G2 possesses a strong equilibrium, then the game Λ possesses a strong equilibrium.
Proof.
Let G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2) have sources s1 and s2 and sinks t1 and t2, respectively.
Let Ti be the set of players with an endpoint in Vi \ {s, t}, for i ∈ {1, 2}.
(An endpoint is either a source or a sink of a player).
Let T3 be the set of players j such that sj = s and tj = t. Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T3 and T2 ∪ T3, respectively.
Let S and S be the SE in Λ1 and Λ2 that minimizes the cost of players in T3, respectively.
Assume w.l.o.g. that ci(S ) ≤ ci(S ) where player i ∈ T3.
In addition, let Λ2 be the game on the graph G2 with players T2 and let ¯S be a SE in Λ2.
We will show that the profile S = S ∪ ¯S is a SE in Λ.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ that can deviate such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
By Lemma 3.2 and the assumption that ci(S ) ≤ ci(S ), a player j ∈ T3 cannot improve his cost.
Therefore, Γ ⊆ T1 ∪ T2.
But this is a contradiction to S being a SE in Λ1 or ¯S being a SE in Λ2.
The following theorem considers the case of single source fair connection games.
Theorem 3.4.
Every single source fair connection game on a series-parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium.
Proof.
We prove the theorem by induction on the network size |V |.
The claim obviously holds if |V | = 2.
We show the claim for a series composition, i.e., G = G1 → G2, and for a parallel composition, i.e., G = G1||G2, where G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2) are SPG``s with sources s1, s2, and sinks t1, t2, respectively.
series composition.
Let G = G1 → G2.
Let T1 be the set of players j such that tj ∈ V1, and T2 be the set of players j such that tj ∈ V2 \ {s2}.
Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T2 and T2, respectively.
For every player i ∈ T2 with action Si in the game Λ let Si ∩E1 be his induced action in the game Λ1, and let Si ∩E2 be his induced action in the game Λ2.
Let S be a SE in Λ1 that minimizes the cost of players in T2 (such a SE exists by the induction hypothesis and Lemma 3.2).
Let S be any SE in Λ2.
We will show that the profile S = S ∪ S is a SE in the game Λ, i.e., for player j ∈ T2 we use the profile Sj = Sj ∪ Sj .
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ that can deviate such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Now, there are two cases: Case 1: Γ ⊆ T1.
This is a contradiction to S being a SE.
Case 2: There exists a player j ∈ Γ ∩ T2.
By Lemma 3.2, player j cannot improve his cost in Λ1 so the improvement is due to Λ2.
Consider the coalition Γ ∩ T2, it would still improve its cost.
However, this contradicts the fact that S is a SE in Λ2.
parallel composition.
Follows from Lemma 3.3.
While multi-commodity fair connection games on series parallel graphs do not necessarily possess a SE (see Theorem 3.6), fair connection games on extension parallel graphs always possess a strong equilibrium.
Theorem 3.5.
Every fair connection game on an extension parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium.
87 t2 t1 s1 s2 2 2 1 3 3 1 (b)(a) a b e f c d Figure 1: Graph topologies.
Proof.
We prove the theorem by induction on the network size |V |.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on an EPG G = (V, E).
The claim obviously holds if |V | = 2.
If the graph G is a parallel composition of two EPG graphs G1 and G2, then the claim follows from Lemma 3.3.
It remains to prove the claim for extension composition.
Suppose the graph G is an extension composition of the graph G1 consisting of a single edge e = (s1, t1) and an EPG G2 = (V2, E2) with terminals s2, t2, such that s = s1 and t = t2.
(The case that G2 is a single edge is similar.)
Let T1 be the set of players with source s1 and sink t1 (i.e., their path is in G1).
Let T2 be the set of players with source and sink in G2.
Let T3 be the set of players with source s1 and sink in V2 \ t1.
Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T3 and T2 ∪ T3, respectively.
Let S , S be SE in Λ1 and Λ2 respectively.
We will show that the profile S = S ∪ S is a SE in the game Λ.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ of minimal size that can deviate such that the cost of any player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Clearly, T1 ∩Γ = φ, since players in T1 have a single strategy.
Hence, Γ ⊆ T2 ∪T3.
Any player j ∈ T2 ∪T3 cannot improve his cost in Λ1.
Therefore, any player j ∈ T2 ∪ T3 improves his cost in Λ2.
However, this contradicts the fact that S is a SE in Λ2.
In the following theorem we provide a few examples of topologies in which a strong equilibrium does not exist, showing that our characterization is almost tight.
Theorem 3.6.
The following connection games exist: (1) There exists a multi-commodity fair connection game on a series parallel graph that does not possess a strong equilibrium.
(2) There exists a single source fair connection game that does not possess a strong equilibrium.
Proof.
For claim (1) consider the graph depicted in Figure 1(a).
This game has a unique NE where S1 = {e, c}, S2 = {b, f}, and each player has a cost of 5.7 However, consider the following coordinated deviation S .
S1 = {a, b, c}, 7 In any NE of the game, player 1 will buy the edge e and player 2 will buy the edge f.
This is since the alternate path, in the respective part, will cost the player 2.5.
Thus, player 1 (player 2) will buy the edge c (edge b) alone, and each player will have a cost of 5.
s 2 + 2 2 1 − 2 1 + 3 1 2 − 3 1 1 1 2 − 3 t1 t2 a c d e f h g b Figure 2: Example of a single source connection game that does not admit SE.
and S2 = {b, c, d}.
In this profile, each player pays a cost of 4, and thus improves its cost.
For claim (2) consider a single source fair connection game on the graph G depicted in Figure 2.
There are two players.
Player i = 1, 2 wishes to connect the source s to its sink ti and the unique NE is S1 = {a, b}, S2 = {a, c}, and each player has a cost of 2.
8 Then, both players can deviate to S1 = {h, f, d} and S2 = {h, f, e}, and decrease their costs to 2 − /2.
Unfortunately, our characterization is not completely tight.
The graph in Figure 1(b) is an example of a non-extension parallel graph which always admits a strong equilibrium.
3.2 Strong Price of Anarchy While the price of anarchy in fair connection games can be as bad as n, the following theorem shows that the strong price of anarchy is bounded by H(n) = n i=1 1 i = Θ(log n).
Theorem 3.7.
The strong price of anarchy of a fair connection game with n players is at most H(n).
Proof.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on the graph G.
We denote by Λ(Γ) the game played on the graph G by a set of players Γ, where the action of player i ∈ Γ remains Σi (the same as in Λ).
Let S = (S1, ... , Sn) be a profile in the game Λ.
We denote by S(Γ) = SΓ the induced profile of players in Γ in the game Λ(Γ).
Let ne(S(Γ)) denote the load of edge e under the profile S(Γ) in the game Λ(Γ), i.e., ne(S(Γ)) = |{j|j ∈ Γ, e ∈ Sj}|.
Similar to congestion games [16, 13] we denote by Φ(S(Γ)) the potential function of the profile S(Γ) in the game Λ(Γ), where Φ(S(Γ)) = e∈E ne(S(Γ)) j=1 fe(j), and define Φ(S(φ)) = 0.
In our case, it holds that Φ(S) = e∈E ce · H(ne(S)).
(1) Let S be a SE, and let S∗ be the profile of the optimal solution.
We define an order on the players as follows.
Let Γn = {1, ..., n} be the set of all the players.
For each k = 8 We can show that this is the unique NE by a simple case analysis: (i) If S1 = {h, f, d} and S2 = {h, f, e}, then player 1 can deviate to S1 = {h, g} and decrease his cost.
(ii) If S1 = {h, g} and S2 = {h, f, e}, then player 2 can deviate to S2 = {a, c} and decrease his cost.
(iii) If S1 = {h, g} and S2 = {a, c}, then player 1 can deviate to S1 = {a, b} and decrease his cost.
88 n, ... , 1, since S is a SE, there exists a player in Γk, w.l.o.g. call it player k, such that, ck(S) ≤ ck(S−Γk , S∗ Γk ).
(2) In this way, Γk is defined recursively, such that for every k = n, ... , 2 it holds that Γk−1 = Γk \ {k}.
(I.e., after the renaming, Γk = {1, ... , k}.)
Let ck(S(Γk)) denote the cost of player k in the game Λ(Γk) under the induced profile S(Γk).
It is easy to see that ck(S(Γk)) = Φ(S(Γk)) − Φ(S(Γk−1)).9 Therefore, ck(S) ≤ ck(S−Γk , S∗ Γk ) (3) ≤ ck(S∗ (Γk)) = Φ(S∗ (Γk)) − Φ(S∗ (Γk−1)).
Summing over all players, we obtain: i∈N ci(S) ≤ Φ(S∗ (Γn)) − Φ(S∗ (φ)) = Φ(S∗ (Γn)) = e∈S∗ ce · H(ne(S∗ )) ≤ e∈S∗ ce · H(n) = H(n) · OPT(Λ), where the first inequality follows since the sum of the right hand side of equation (3) telescopes, and the second equality follows from equation (1).
Next we bound the SPoA when coalitions of size at most k are allowed.
Theorem 3.8.
The k-SPoA of a fair connection game with n players is at most n k · H(k).
Proof.
Let S be a SE of Λ, and S∗ be the profile of the optimal solution of Λ.
To simplify the proof, we assume that n/k is an integer.
We partition the players to n/k groups T1, ... , Tn/k each of size k. Let Λj be the game on the graph G played by the set of players Tj.
Let S(Tj) denote the profile of the k players in Tj in the game Λj induced by the profile S of the game Λ.
By Theorem 3.7, it holds that for each game Λj, j = 1, ... , n/k, costΛj (S(Tj)) = i∈Tj ci(S(Tj)) ≤ H(k) · OPT(Λj) ≤ H(k) · OPT(Λ).
Summing over all games Λj, j = 1, ... , n/k, costΛ(S) ≤ n/k j=1 costΛj (S(Tj)) ≤ n k · H(k) · OPT(Λ), where the first inequality follows since for each group Tj and player i ∈ Tj, it holds that ci(S) ≤ ci(S(Tj)).
Next we show an almost matching lower bound.
(The lower bound is at most H(n) = O(log n) from the upper bound and both for k = O(1) and k = Ω(n) the difference is only a constant.)
Theorem 3.9.
For fair connection games with n players, k-SPoA ≥ max{n k , H(n)}.
9 This follows since for any strategy profile S, if a single player k deviates to strategy Sk, then the change in the potential value Φ(S) − Φ(Sk, S−k) is exactly the change in the cost to player k. t2 s t1 tn−2 tn 1 2 t3 tn−1 1 1 3 1 n−2 2 n 1 + 00 0 0 0 00 0 Figure 3: Example of a network topology in which SPoS > PoS.
Proof.
For the lower bound of H(n) we observe that in the example presented in [2], the unique Nash equilibrium is also a strong equilibrium, and therefore k-SPoA = H(n) for any 1 ≤ k ≤ n. For the lower bound of n/k, consider a graph composed of two parallel links of costs 1 and n/k.
Consider the profile S in which all n players use the link of cost n/k.
The cost of each player is 1/k, while if any coalition of size at most k deviates to the link of cost 1, the cost of each player is at least 1/k.
Therefore, the profile S is a k-SE, and k-SPoA = n/k.
The results of Theorems 3.7 and 3.8 can be extended to concave cost functions.
Consider the extended fair connection game, where each edge has a cost which depends on the number of players using that edge, ce(ne).
We assume that the cost function ce(ne) is a nondecreasing, concave function.
Note that the cost of an edge ce(ne) might increase with the number of players using it, but the cost per player fe(ne) = ce(ne)/ne decreases when ce(ne) is concave.
Theorem 3.10.
The strong price of anarchy of a fair connection game with nondecreasing concave edge cost functions and n players is at most H(n).
Proof.
The proof is analogues to the proof of Theorem 3.7.
For the proof we show that cost(S) ≤ Φ(S∗ ) ≤ H(n)·cost(S∗ ).
We first show the first inequality.
Since the function ce(x) is concave, the cost per player ce(x)/x is a nonincreasing function.
Therefore inequality (3) in the proof of Theorem 3.7 holds.
Summing inequality (3) over all players we obtain cost(S) = i ci(S) ≤ Φ(S∗ (Γn))−Φ(S∗ (φ)) = Φ(S∗ ).
The second inequality follows since ce(x) is nondecreasing and therefore ne x=1(ce(x)/x) ≤ H(ne) · ce(ne).
Using the arguments in the proof of Theorem 3.10 and the proof of Theorem 3.8 we derive, Theorem 3.11.
The k-SPoA of a fair connection game with nondecreasing concave edge cost functions and n players is at most n k · H(k).
Since the set of strong equilibria is contained in the set of Nash equilibria, it must hold that SPoA ≤ PoA, meaning that the SPoA can only be improved compared to the PoA.
However, with respect to the price of stability the opposite direction holds, that is, SPoS ≥ PoS.
We next show that there exists a fair connection game in which the inequality is strict.
89 2 − 2 − 2 − 3 s t1 t2 t3 Figure 4: Example of a single source general connection game that does not admit a strong equilibrium.
The edges that are not labeled with costs have a cost of zero.
Theorem 3.12.
There exists a fair connection game in which SPoS > PoS.
Proof.
Consider a single source fair connection game on the graph G depicted in Figure 3.10 Player i = 1, ... , n wishes to connect the source s to his sink ti.
Assume that each player i = 1, ... , n − 2 has his own path of cost 1/i from s to ti and players i = n − 1, n have a joint path of cost 2/n from s to ti.
Additionally, all players can share a common path of cost 1+ for some small > 0.
The optimal solution connects all players through the common path of cost 1 + , and this is also a Nash equilibrium with total cost 1 + .
It is easy to verify that the solution where each player i = 1, ... , n−2 uses his own path and users i = n−1, n use their joint path is the unique strong equilibrium of this game with total cost n−2 i=1 1 i + 2 n = Θ(log n) While the example above shows that the SPoS may be greater than the PoS, the upper bound of H(n) = Θ(log n), proven for the PoS [2], serves as an upper bound for the SPoS as well.
This is a direct corollary from theorem 3.7, as SPoS ≤ SPoA by definition.
Corollary 3.13.
The strong price of stability of a fair connection game with n players is at most H(n) = O(log n).
4.
GENERAL CONNECTION GAMES In this section, we derive our results for general connection games.
4.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium We begin with a characterization of the existence of a strong equilibrium in symmetric general connection games.
Similar to Theorem 3.1 (using a similar proof) we establish, Theorem 4.1.
In every symmetric fair connection game there exists a strong equilibrium.
While every single source general connection game possesses a pure Nash equilibrium [3], it does not necessarily admit some strong equilibrium.11 10 This is a variation on the example given in [2].
11 We thank Elliot Anshelevich, whose similar topology for the fair-connection game inspired this example.
Theorem 4.2.
There exists a single source general connection game that does not admit any strong equilibrium.
Proof.
Consider single source general connection game with 3 players on the graph depicted in Figure 4.
Player i wishes to connect the source s with its sink ti.We need to consider only the NE profiles: (i) if all three players use the link of cost 3, then there must be two agents whose total sum exceeds 2, thus they can both reduce cost by deviating to an edge of cost 2− .
(ii) if two of the players use an edge of cost 2− jointly, and the third player uses a different edge of cost 2 − , then, the players with non-zero payments can deviate to the path with the edge of cost 3 and reduce their costs (since before the deviation the total payments of the players is 4 − 2 ).
We showed that none of the NE are SE, and thus the game does not possess any SE.
Next we show that for the class of series parallel graphs, there is always a strong equilibrium in the case of a single source.
Theorem 4.3.
In every single source general connection game on a series-parallel graph, there exists a strong equilibrium.
Proof.
Let Λ be a single source general connection game on a SPG G = (V, E) with source s and sink t.
We present an algorithm that constructs a specific SE.
We first consider the following partial order between the players.
For players i and j, we have that i → j if there is a directed path from ti to tj.
We complete the partial order to a full order (in an arbitrary way), and w.l.o.g. we assume that 1 → 2 → · · · → n.
The algorithm COMPUTE-SE, considers the players in an increasing order, starting with player 1.
Each player i will fully buy a subset of the edges, and any player j > i will consider the cost of those (bought) edges as zero.
When COMPUTE-SE considers player j, the cost of the edges that players 1 to j−1 have bought is set to zero, and player j fully buys a shortest path Qj from s to tj.
Namely, for every edges e ∈ Qj \ ∪i<jQi we have pj(e) = ce and otherwise pj(e) = 0.
We next show that the algorithm COMPUTESE computes a SE.
Assume by way of contradiction that the profile p is not a SE.
Then, there exists a coalition that can improve the costs of all its players by a deviation.
Let Γ be such a coalition of minimal size and let player i = max{j ∈ Γ}.
For a player j ∈ Γ let ¯Qj and ¯pj be the path and payment of player j after the deviation, respectively.
Let Q be a path from the sink of player i, i.e. ti, to the sink of G, i.e. t.
Then Q = ¯Qi ∪ Q is a path from the source s to the sink t. For any player j < i, let yj be the intersecting vertex of Q and tj (by Lemma 2.1 one is guarantee to exist).
Let y be the furthest vertex on the path Q such that y = yj for some j < i.
The path from the source s to node y was fully paid for by players j < i in p (before the deviation).
There are two cases we consider.
case a: After the deviation player i does not pay for edges in j∈Γ\{i} ¯Qj .
This is a contradiction to the minimality of the coalition Γ size, since the players in Γ \ {i} can form a smaller coalition with payments ¯p. case b: Otherwise, we show that player i cost after the deviation, i.e. ci(¯p), is at least his cost before the deviation, i.e. ci(p), contradicting the fact that player i improved his cost.
Recall that given two vertices u, v on path ¯Q we denote by ¯Qu,v the subpath of ¯Q from u to v. 90 Before the deviation of the coalition Γ, a path from s to y was fully paid for by the players j < i. Next we show that no player k > i pays for any edge on any path from s to ti.
Consider a player k > i and let Qk = Qk ∪ Qk , where Qk is a path connecting tk to t. Let yk be the intersecting vertex of Qk and ti.
Since there exists a path from s to yk that was fully paid for by players j < k before the deviation, in particularly the path Qi s,yk , player k will not pay for any edge on any path connecting s and yk.
Therefore player i fully pays for all edges on the path ¯Qi y,ti , i.e., ¯pi(e) = ce for all edges e ∈ ¯Qi y,ti .
Now consider the algorithm COMPUTESE at the step when player i selects a shortest path from the source s to its sink ti and determines his payment pi.
At this point, player i could buy the path ¯Qi y,ti , since a path from s to y was already paid for by players j < i. Hence, ci(¯p) ≥ ci(p).
This contradicts the fact that player i improved its cost and therefore not all the players in Γ reduce their cost.
This implies that p is a strong equilibrium.
4.2 Strong Price of Anarchy While for every single source general connection game, it holds that PoS = 1 [3], the price of anarchy can be as large as n, even for two parallel edges.
Here, we show that any strong equilibrium in single source general connection games yields the optimal cost.
Theorem 4.4.
In single source general connection game, if there exists a strong equilibrium, then the strong price of anarchy is 1.
Proof.
Let p = (p1, ... , pn) be a strong equilibrium, and let T∗ be the minimum cost Steiner tree on all players, rooted at the (single) source s. Let T∗ e be the subtree of T∗ disconnected from s when edge e is removed.
Let Γ(Te) be the set of players which have sinks in Te.
For a set of edges E, let c(E) = e∈E ce.
Let P(Te) = i∈Γ(Te) ci(p).
Assume by way of contradiction that c(p) > c(T∗ ).
We will show that there exists a sub-tree T of T∗ , that connects a subset of players Γ ⊆ N, and a new set of payments ¯p, such that for each i ∈ Γ, ci(¯p) < ci(p).
This will contradict the assumption that p is a strong equilibrium.
First we show how to find a sub-tree T of T∗ , such that for any edge e, the payments of players with sinks in T∗ e is more than the cost of T∗ e ∪ {e}.
To build T , define an edge e to be bad if the cost of T∗ e ∪ {e} is at least the payments of the players with sinks in T∗ e , i.e., c(T∗ e ∪ {e}) ≥ P(T∗ e ).
Let B be the set of bad edges.
We define T to be T∗ − ∪e∈B(T∗ e ∪ {e}).
Note that we can find a subset B of B such that ∪e∈B(T∗ e ∪ {e}) is equal to ∪e∈B (T∗ e ∪ {e}) and for any e1, e2 ∈ B we have T∗ e1 ∩ T∗ e2 = ∅.
(The set B will include any edge e ∈ B for which there is no other edge e ∈ B on the path from e to the source s.) Considering the edges in e ∈ B we can see that any subtree T∗ e we delete from T can not decrease the difference between the payments and the cost of the remaining tree.
Therefore, in T for every edge e, we have that c(Te ∪ {e}) < P(Te).
Now we have a tree T and our coalition will be Γ(T ).
What remain is to find payments ¯p for the players in Γ(T ) such that they will buy the tree T and every player in Γ(T ) will lower its cost, i.e. ci(p) > ci(¯p) for i ∈ Γ(T ).
(Recall that the payments have the restriction that player i can only pay for edges on the path from s to ti.)
We will now define the coalition payments ¯p. Let ci(¯p, Te) = e∈Te ¯pi(e) be the payments of player i for the subtree Te.
We will show that for every subtree Te, ci(¯p, Te ∪ {e}) < ci(p), and hence ci(¯p) < ci(p).
Consider the following bottom up process that defines ¯p.
We assign the payments of edge e in T , after we assign payments to all the edges in Te.
This implies that when we assign payments for e, we have that the sum of the payments in Te is equal to c(Te) = i∈Γ(Te) ci(¯p, Te).
Since e was not a bad edge, we know that c(Te ∪ {e}) = c(Te) + ce < P(Te).
Therefore, we can update the payments ¯p of players i ∈ Γ(Te), by setting ¯pi(e) = ce∆i/( j∈Γ(Te) ∆j), where ∆j = cj(p) − cj(¯p, Te).
After the update we have for player i ∈ Γ(Te), ci(¯p, Te ∪ {e}) = ci(¯p, Te) + ¯pi(e) = ci(¯p, Te) + ∆i ce j∈Γ(Te) ∆j = ci(p) − ∆i(1 − ce P(Γ(Te)) − c(Te) ), where we used the fact that j∈Γ(Te) ∆j = P(Γ(Te))−c(Te).
Since ce < P(Γ(Te)) − c(Te) it follows that ci(¯p, Te ∪ {e}) < ci(p).
5.
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92

Strong Equilibrium in Cost Sharing Connection Games *
ABSTRACT
In this work we study cost sharing connection games, where each player has a source and sink he would like to connect, and the cost of the edges is either shared equally (fair connection games) or in an arbitrary way (general connection games).
We study the graph topologies that guarantee the existence of a strong equilibrium (where no coalition can improve the cost of each of its members) regardless of the specific costs on the edges.
Our main existence results are the following: (1) For a single source and sink we show that there is always a strong equilibrium (both for fair and general connection games).
(2) For a single source multiple sinks we show that for a series parallel graph a strong equilibrium always exists (both for fair and general connection games).
(3) For multi source and sink we show that an extension parallel graph always admits a strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
As for the quality of the strong equilibrium we show that in any fair connection games the cost of a strong equilibrium is Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
(This should be contrasted with the Ω (n) price of anarchy for the same setting.)
For single source general connection games and single source single sink fair connection games, we show that a strong equilibrium is always an optimal solution.
* Research supported in part by a grant of the Israel Science Foundation, Binational Science Foundation (BSF), GermanIsraeli Foundation (GIF), Lady Davis Fellowship, an IBM faculty award, and the IST Programme of the European Community, under the PASCAL Network of Excellence, IST-2002-506778.
This publication only reflects the authors' views.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Computational game theory has introduced the issue of incentives to many of the classical combinatorial optimization problems.
The view that the demand side is many times not under the control of a central authority that optimizes the global performance, but rather under the control of individuals with different incentives, has led already to many important insights.
Consider classical routing and transportation problems such as multicast or multi-commodity problems, which are many times viewed as follows.
We are given a graph with edge costs and connectivity demands between nodes, and our goal is to find a minimal cost solution.
The classical centralized approach assumes that all the individual demands can both be completely coordinated and have no individual incentives.
The game theory point of view would assume that each individual demand is controlled by a player that optimizes its own utility, and the resulting outcome could be far from the optimal solution.
When considering individual incentives one needs to discuss the appropriate solution concept.
Much of the research in computational game theory has focused on the classical Nash equilibrium as the primary solution concept.
Indeed Nash equilibrium has many benefits, and most importantly it always exists (in mixed strategies).
However, the solution concept of Nash equilibrium is resilient only to unilateral deviations, while in reality, players may be able to coordinate their actions.
A strong equilibrium [4] is a state from which no coalition (of any size) can deviate and improve the utility of every member of the coalition (while possibly lowering the utility
of players outside the coalition).
This resilience to deviations by coalitions of the players is highly attractive, and one can hope that once a strong equilibrium is reached it is highly likely to sustain.
From a computational game theory point of view, an additional benefit of a strong equilibrium is that it has a potential to reduce the distance between the optimal solution and the solution obtained as an outcome of selfish behavior.
The strong price of anarchy (SPoA), introduced in [1], is the ratio between the cost of the worst strong equilibrium and the cost of an optimal solution.
Obviously, SPoA is meaningful only in those cases where a strong equilibrium exists.
A major downside of strong equilibrium is that most games do not admit any strong equilibrium.
Even simple classical games like the prisoner's dilemma do not posses any strong equilibrium (which is also an example of a congestion game that does not posses a strong equilibriums).
This unfortunate fact has reduced the concentration in strong equilibrium, despite its highly attractive properties.
Yet, [1] have identified two broad families of games, namely job scheduling and network formation, where a strong equilibrium always exists and the SPoA is significantly lower than the price of anarchy (which is the ratio between the worst Nash equilibrium and the optimal solution [15, 18, 5, 6]).
In this work we concentrate on cost sharing connection games, introduced by [3, 2].
In such a game, there is an underlying directed graph with edge costs, and individual users have connectivity demands (between a source and a sink).
We consider two models.
The fair cost connection model [2] allows each player to select a path from the source to the sink2.
In this game the cost of an edge is shared equally between all the players that selected the edge, and the cost of the player is the sum of its costs on the edges it selected.
The general connection game [3] allows each player to offer prices for edges.
In this game an edge is bought if the sum of the offers at least covers its cost, and the cost of the player is the sum of its offers on the bought edges (in both games we assume that the player has to guarantee the connectivity between its source and sink).
In this work we focus on two important issues.
The first one is identifying under what conditions the existence of a strong equilibrium is guaranteed, and the second one is the quality of the strong equilibria.
For the existence part, we identify families of graph topologies that possess some strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs.
One can view this separation between the graph topology and the edge costs, as a separation between the underlying infrastructure and the costs the players observe to purchase edges.
While one expects the infrastructure to be stable over long periods of time, the costs the players observe can be easily modified over short time periods.
Such a topological characterization of the underlying infrastructure provides a network designer topological conditions that will ensure stability in his network.
Our results are as follows.
For the single commodity case (all the players have the same source and sink), there is a strong equilibrium in any graph (both for fair and general connection games).
Moreover, the strong equilibrium is also swhile any congestion game is known to admit at least one Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [16].
2The fair cost sharing scheme is also attractive from a mechanism design point of view, as it is a strategyproof costsharing mechanism [14].
the optimal solution (namely, the players share a shortest path from the common source to the common sink).
For the case of a single source and multiple sinks (for example, in a multicast tree), we show that in a fair connection game there is a strong equilibrium if the underlying graph is a series parallel graph, and we show an example of a nonseries parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
For the case of multi-commodity (multi sources and sinks), we show that in a fair connection game if the graph is an extension parallel graph then there is always a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a series parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
As far as we know, we are the first to provide a topological characterization for equilibrium existence in multi-commodity and single-source network games.
For any fair connection game we show that if there exists a strong equilibrium it is at most a factor of Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
This should be contrasted with the Θ (n) bound that exists for the price of anarchy [2].
For single source general connection games, we show that any series parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
In this case we also show that any strong equilibrium is optimal.
Related work
Topological characterizations for single-commodity network games have been recently provided for various equilibrium properties, including equilibrium existence [12, 7, 8], equilibrium uniqueness [10] and equilibrium efficiency [17, 11].
The existence of pure Nash equilibrium in single-commodity network congestion games with player-specific costs or weights was studied in [12].
The existence of strong equilibrium was studied in both utility-decreasing (e.g., routing) and utility-increasing (e.g., fair cost-sharing) congestion games.
[7, 8] have provided a full topological characterization for a SE existence in single-commodity utility-decreasing congestion games, and showed that a SE always exists if and only if the underlying graph is extension-parallel.
[19] have shown that in single-commodity utility-increasing congestion games, the topological characterization is essentially equivalent to parallel links.
In addition, they have shown that these results hold for correlated strong equilibria as well (in contrast to the decreasing setting, where correlated strong equilibria might not exist at all).
While the fair cost sharing games we study are utility increasing network congestion games, we derive a different characterization than [19] due to the different assumptions regarding the players' actions .3
2.
MODEL
2.1 Game Theory definitions
2.2 Cost Sharing Connection Games
2.3 Extension Parallel and Series Parallel Directed Graphs
3.
FAIR CONNECTION GAMES
3.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium
3.2 Strong Price of Anarchy
4.
GENERAL CONNECTION GAMES
In this section, we derive our results for general connection games.
4.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium
We begin with a characterization of the existence of a strong equilibrium in symmetric general connection games.
Similar to Theorem 3.1 (using a similar proof) we establish, THEOREM 4.1.
In every symmetric fair connection game there exists a strong equilibrium.
While every single source general connection game possesses a pure Nash equilibrium [3], it does not necessarily admit some strong equilibrium .11
the fair-connection game inspired this example.
THEOREM 4.2.
There exists a single source general connection game that does not admit any strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
Consider single source general connection game with 3 players on the graph depicted in Figure 4.
Player i wishes to connect the source s with its sink ti.We need to consider only the NE profiles: (i) if all three players use the link of cost 3, then there must be two agents whose total sum exceeds 2, thus they can both reduce cost by deviating to an edge of cost 2 − E. (ii) if two of the players use an edge of cost 2 − e jointly, and the third player uses a different edge of cost 2 − e, then, the players with non-zero payments can deviate to the path with the edge of cost 3 and reduce their costs (since before the deviation the total payments of the players is 4 − 2e).
We showed that none of the NE are SE, and thus the game does not possess any SE.
Next we show that for the class of series parallel graphs, there is always a strong equilibrium in the case of a single source.
PROOF.
Let Λ be a single source general connection game on a SPG G = (V, E) with source s and sink t.
We present an algorithm that constructs a specific SE.
We first consider the following partial order between the players.
For players i and j, we have that i → j if there is a directed path from ti to tj.
We complete the partial order to a full order (in an arbitrary way), and w.l.o.g. we assume that 1 → 2 → · · · → n.
The algorithm COMPUTE-SE, considers the players in an increasing order, starting with player 1.
Each player i will fully buy a subset of the edges, and any player j> i will consider the cost of those (bought) edges as zero.
When COMPUTE-SE considers player j, the cost of the edges that players 1 to j − 1 have bought is set to zero, and player j fully buys a shortest path Qj from s to tj.
Namely, for every edges e G Qj \ Ui <jQi we have pj (e) = ce and otherwise pj (e) = 0.
We next show that the algorithm COMPUTESE computes a SE.
Assume by way of contradiction that the profile p is not a SE.
Then, there exists a coalition that can improve the costs of all its players by a deviation.
Let Γ be such a coalition of minimal size and let player i = max {j G Γ}.
For a player j G Γ let ¯ Qj and ¯ pj be the path and payment of player j after the deviation, respectively.
Let Q' be a path from the sink of player i, i.e. ti, to the sink of G, i.e. t.
Then Q = ¯ Qi U Q' is a path from the source s to the sink t. For any player j <i, let yj be the intersecting vertex of Q and tj (by Lemma 2.1 one is guarantee to exist).
Let y be the furthest vertex on the path Q such that y = yj for some j <i.
The path from the source s to node y was fully paid for by players j <i in p (before the deviation).
There are two cases we consider.
case a: After the deviation player i does not pay for edges in U j ∈ Γ \ {i} ¯ Qj.
This is a contradiction to the minimality of the coalition Γ size, since the players in Γ \ {i} can form a smaller coalition with payments ¯ p. case b: Otherwise, we show that player i cost after the deviation, i.e. ci (¯ p), is at least his cost before the deviation, i.e. ci (p), contradicting the fact that player i improved his cost.
Recall that given two vertices u, v on path Q ¯ we denote by ¯ Qu, v the subpath of Q ¯ from u to v.
Before the deviation of the coalition Γ, a path from s to y was fully paid for by the players j <i. Next we show that no player k> i pays for any edge on any path from s to ti.
Consider a player k> i and let Q0k = Qk U Q00k, where Q00k is a path connecting tk to t. Let yk be the intersecting vertex of Q0k and ti.
Since there exists a path from s to yk that was fully paid for by players j <k before the deviation, in particularly the path Qis, yk, player k will not pay for any edge on any path connecting s and yk.
Therefore player i fully pays for all edges on the path ¯ Qiy, ti, i.e., ¯ pi (e) = ce for all edges e E ¯ Qiy, ti.
Now consider the algorithm COMPUTESE at the step when player i selects a shortest path from the source s to its sink ti and determines his payment pi.
At this point, player i could buy the path ¯ Qiy, ti, since a path from s to y was already paid for by players j <i. Hence, ci (¯ p)> ci (p).
This contradicts the fact that player i improved its cost and therefore not all the players in Γ reduce their cost.
This implies that p is a strong equilibrium.
4.2 Strong Price of Anarchy
While for every single source general connection game, it holds that PoS = 1 [3], the price of anarchy can be as large as n, even for two parallel edges.
Here, we show that any strong equilibrium in single source general connection games yields the optimal cost.
PROOF.
Let p = (p1,..., pn) be a strong equilibrium, and let T ∗ be the minimum cost Steiner tree on all players, rooted at the (single) source s. Let Te ∗ be the subtree of T ∗ disconnected from s when edge e is removed.
Let Γ (Te) be the set of players which have sinks in Te.
For a set of edges E, let c (E) = Ee ∈ E ce.
Let P (Te) = Ei ∈ Γ (Te) ci (p).
Assume by way of contradiction that c (p)> c (T ∗).
We will show that there exists a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, that connects a subset of players Γ C _ N, and a new set of payments ¯ p, such that for each i E Γ, ci (¯ p) <ci (p).
This will contradict the assumption that p is a strong equilibrium.
First we show how to find a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, such that for any edge e, the payments of players with sinks in Te ∗ is more than the cost of Te ∗ U {e}.
To build T0, define an edge e to be bad if the cost of Te ∗ U {e} is at least the payments of the players with sinks in Te ∗, i.e., c (Te ∗ U {e})> P (Te ∗).
Let B be the set of bad edges.
We define T0 to be T ∗ − Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}).
Note that we can find a subset B0 of B such that Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}) is equal to Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}) and for any e1, e2 E B0 we have T ∗ e1 n T ∗ ee = 0.
(The set B0 will include any edge e E B for which there is no other edge e0 E B on the path from e to the source s.) Considering the edges in e E B0 we can see that any subtree Te ∗ we delete from T cannot decrease the difference between the payments and the cost of the remaining tree.
Therefore, in T0 for every edge e, we have that c (Te0 U {e}) <P (T0e).
Now we have a tree T0 and our coalition will be Γ (T0).
What remain is to find payments p ¯ for the players in Γ (T0) such that they will buy the tree T0 and every player in Γ (T0) will lower its cost, i.e. ci (p)> ci (¯ p) for i E Γ (T0).
(Recall that the payments have the restriction that player i can only pay for edges on the path from s to ti.)
We will now define the coalition payments ¯ p. Let ci (¯ p, T0 e ∈ Te ¯ pi (e) be the payments of player i for the subtree T0e.
We will show that for every subtree T0 e, ci (¯ p, Te0 U {e}) <ci (p), and hence ci (¯ p) <ci (p).
Consider the following bottom up process that defines ¯ p.
We assign the payments of edge e in T0, after we assign payments to all the edges in T0e.
This implies that when we assign payments for e, we have that the sum of the payments in Te0 is equal to
know that c (Te0 U {e}) = c (T0e) + ce <P (T0e).
Therefore, we can update the payments p ¯ of players i E Γ (T0e), by setting
where we used the fact that E e).
Since ce <P (Γ (T0e)) − c (T0e) it follows that ci (¯ p, Te0 U {e}) <ci (p).

Strong Equilibrium in Cost Sharing Connection Games *
ABSTRACT
In this work we study cost sharing connection games, where each player has a source and sink he would like to connect, and the cost of the edges is either shared equally (fair connection games) or in an arbitrary way (general connection games).
We study the graph topologies that guarantee the existence of a strong equilibrium (where no coalition can improve the cost of each of its members) regardless of the specific costs on the edges.
Our main existence results are the following: (1) For a single source and sink we show that there is always a strong equilibrium (both for fair and general connection games).
(2) For a single source multiple sinks we show that for a series parallel graph a strong equilibrium always exists (both for fair and general connection games).
(3) For multi source and sink we show that an extension parallel graph always admits a strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
As for the quality of the strong equilibrium we show that in any fair connection games the cost of a strong equilibrium is Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
(This should be contrasted with the Ω (n) price of anarchy for the same setting.)
For single source general connection games and single source single sink fair connection games, we show that a strong equilibrium is always an optimal solution.
* Research supported in part by a grant of the Israel Science Foundation, Binational Science Foundation (BSF), GermanIsraeli Foundation (GIF), Lady Davis Fellowship, an IBM faculty award, and the IST Programme of the European Community, under the PASCAL Network of Excellence, IST-2002-506778.
This publication only reflects the authors' views.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Computational game theory has introduced the issue of incentives to many of the classical combinatorial optimization problems.
Consider classical routing and transportation problems such as multicast or multi-commodity problems, which are many times viewed as follows.
We are given a graph with edge costs and connectivity demands between nodes, and our goal is to find a minimal cost solution.
The game theory point of view would assume that each individual demand is controlled by a player that optimizes its own utility, and the resulting outcome could be far from the optimal solution.
When considering individual incentives one needs to discuss the appropriate solution concept.
Much of the research in computational game theory has focused on the classical Nash equilibrium as the primary solution concept.
Indeed Nash equilibrium has many benefits, and most importantly it always exists (in mixed strategies).
However, the solution concept of Nash equilibrium is resilient only to unilateral deviations, while in reality, players may be able to coordinate their actions.
A strong equilibrium [4] is a state from which no coalition (of any size) can deviate and improve the utility of every member of the coalition (while possibly lowering the utility
of players outside the coalition).
This resilience to deviations by coalitions of the players is highly attractive, and one can hope that once a strong equilibrium is reached it is highly likely to sustain.
From a computational game theory point of view, an additional benefit of a strong equilibrium is that it has a potential to reduce the distance between the optimal solution and the solution obtained as an outcome of selfish behavior.
The strong price of anarchy (SPoA), introduced in [1], is the ratio between the cost of the worst strong equilibrium and the cost of an optimal solution.
Obviously, SPoA is meaningful only in those cases where a strong equilibrium exists.
A major downside of strong equilibrium is that most games do not admit any strong equilibrium.
Even simple classical games like the prisoner's dilemma do not posses any strong equilibrium (which is also an example of a congestion game that does not posses a strong equilibriums).
This unfortunate fact has reduced the concentration in strong equilibrium, despite its highly attractive properties.
In this work we concentrate on cost sharing connection games, introduced by [3, 2].
In such a game, there is an underlying directed graph with edge costs, and individual users have connectivity demands (between a source and a sink).
We consider two models.
The fair cost connection model [2] allows each player to select a path from the source to the sink2.
In this game the cost of an edge is shared equally between all the players that selected the edge, and the cost of the player is the sum of its costs on the edges it selected.
The general connection game [3] allows each player to offer prices for edges.
In this game an edge is bought if the sum of the offers at least covers its cost, and the cost of the player is the sum of its offers on the bought edges (in both games we assume that the player has to guarantee the connectivity between its source and sink).
In this work we focus on two important issues.
The first one is identifying under what conditions the existence of a strong equilibrium is guaranteed, and the second one is the quality of the strong equilibria.
For the existence part, we identify families of graph topologies that possess some strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs.
One can view this separation between the graph topology and the edge costs, as a separation between the underlying infrastructure and the costs the players observe to purchase edges.
While one expects the infrastructure to be stable over long periods of time, the costs the players observe can be easily modified over short time periods.
Our results are as follows.
For the single commodity case (all the players have the same source and sink), there is a strong equilibrium in any graph (both for fair and general connection games).
Moreover, the strong equilibrium is also swhile any congestion game is known to admit at least one Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [16].
2The fair cost sharing scheme is also attractive from a mechanism design point of view, as it is a strategyproof costsharing mechanism [14].
the optimal solution (namely, the players share a shortest path from the common source to the common sink).
For the case of a single source and multiple sinks (for example, in a multicast tree), we show that in a fair connection game there is a strong equilibrium if the underlying graph is a series parallel graph, and we show an example of a nonseries parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
For the case of multi-commodity (multi sources and sinks), we show that in a fair connection game if the graph is an extension parallel graph then there is always a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a series parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
As far as we know, we are the first to provide a topological characterization for equilibrium existence in multi-commodity and single-source network games.
For any fair connection game we show that if there exists a strong equilibrium it is at most a factor of Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
This should be contrasted with the Θ (n) bound that exists for the price of anarchy [2].
For single source general connection games, we show that any series parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
In this case we also show that any strong equilibrium is optimal.
Related work
Topological characterizations for single-commodity network games have been recently provided for various equilibrium properties, including equilibrium existence [12, 7, 8], equilibrium uniqueness [10] and equilibrium efficiency [17, 11].
The existence of pure Nash equilibrium in single-commodity network congestion games with player-specific costs or weights was studied in [12].
The existence of strong equilibrium was studied in both utility-decreasing (e.g., routing) and utility-increasing (e.g., fair cost-sharing) congestion games.
[7, 8] have provided a full topological characterization for a SE existence in single-commodity utility-decreasing congestion games, and showed that a SE always exists if and only if the underlying graph is extension-parallel.
[19] have shown that in single-commodity utility-increasing congestion games, the topological characterization is essentially equivalent to parallel links.
In addition, they have shown that these results hold for correlated strong equilibria as well (in contrast to the decreasing setting, where correlated strong equilibria might not exist at all).
While the fair cost sharing games we study are utility increasing network congestion games, we derive a different characterization than [19] due to the different assumptions regarding the players' actions .3
4.
GENERAL CONNECTION GAMES
In this section, we derive our results for general connection games.
4.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium
We begin with a characterization of the existence of a strong equilibrium in symmetric general connection games.
Similar to Theorem 3.1 (using a similar proof) we establish, THEOREM 4.1.
In every symmetric fair connection game there exists a strong equilibrium.
While every single source general connection game possesses a pure Nash equilibrium [3], it does not necessarily admit some strong equilibrium .11
the fair-connection game inspired this example.
THEOREM 4.2.
There exists a single source general connection game that does not admit any strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
Consider single source general connection game with 3 players on the graph depicted in Figure 4.
We showed that none of the NE are SE, and thus the game does not possess any SE.
Next we show that for the class of series parallel graphs, there is always a strong equilibrium in the case of a single source.
PROOF.
Let Λ be a single source general connection game on a SPG G = (V, E) with source s and sink t.
We first consider the following partial order between the players.
For players i and j, we have that i → j if there is a directed path from ti to tj.
The algorithm COMPUTE-SE, considers the players in an increasing order, starting with player 1.
Each player i will fully buy a subset of the edges, and any player j> i will consider the cost of those (bought) edges as zero.
When COMPUTE-SE considers player j, the cost of the edges that players 1 to j − 1 have bought is set to zero, and player j fully buys a shortest path Qj from s to tj.
Namely, for every edges e G Qj \ Ui <jQi we have pj (e) = ce and otherwise pj (e) = 0.
We next show that the algorithm COMPUTESE computes a SE.
Assume by way of contradiction that the profile p is not a SE.
Then, there exists a coalition that can improve the costs of all its players by a deviation.
Let Γ be such a coalition of minimal size and let player i = max {j G Γ}.
For a player j G Γ let ¯ Qj and ¯ pj be the path and payment of player j after the deviation, respectively.
Let Q' be a path from the sink of player i, i.e. ti, to the sink of G, i.e. t.
Then Q = ¯ Qi U Q' is a path from the source s to the sink t. For any player j <i, let yj be the intersecting vertex of Q and tj (by Lemma 2.1 one is guarantee to exist).
Let y be the furthest vertex on the path Q such that y = yj for some j <i.
The path from the source s to node y was fully paid for by players j <i in p (before the deviation).
There are two cases we consider.
case a: After the deviation player i does not pay for edges in U j ∈ Γ \ {i} ¯ Qj.
Before the deviation of the coalition Γ, a path from s to y was fully paid for by the players j <i. Next we show that no player k> i pays for any edge on any path from s to ti.
Consider a player k> i and let Q0k = Qk U Q00k, where Q00k is a path connecting tk to t. Let yk be the intersecting vertex of Q0k and ti.
Since there exists a path from s to yk that was fully paid for by players j <k before the deviation, in particularly the path Qis, yk, player k will not pay for any edge on any path connecting s and yk.
Therefore player i fully pays for all edges on the path ¯ Qiy, ti, i.e., ¯ pi (e) = ce for all edges e E ¯ Qiy, ti.
Now consider the algorithm COMPUTESE at the step when player i selects a shortest path from the source s to its sink ti and determines his payment pi.
At this point, player i could buy the path ¯ Qiy, ti, since a path from s to y was already paid for by players j <i. Hence, ci (¯ p)> ci (p).
This contradicts the fact that player i improved its cost and therefore not all the players in Γ reduce their cost.
This implies that p is a strong equilibrium.
4.2 Strong Price of Anarchy
While for every single source general connection game, it holds that PoS = 1 [3], the price of anarchy can be as large as n, even for two parallel edges.
Here, we show that any strong equilibrium in single source general connection games yields the optimal cost.
PROOF.
Let p = (p1,..., pn) be a strong equilibrium, and let T ∗ be the minimum cost Steiner tree on all players, rooted at the (single) source s. Let Te ∗ be the subtree of T ∗ disconnected from s when edge e is removed.
Let Γ (Te) be the set of players which have sinks in Te.
For a set of edges E, let c (E) = Ee ∈ E ce.
Assume by way of contradiction that c (p)> c (T ∗).
We will show that there exists a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, that connects a subset of players Γ C _ N, and a new set of payments ¯ p, such that for each i E Γ, ci (¯ p) <ci (p).
This will contradict the assumption that p is a strong equilibrium.
First we show how to find a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, such that for any edge e, the payments of players with sinks in Te ∗ is more than the cost of Te ∗ U {e}.
To build T0, define an edge e to be bad if the cost of Te ∗ U {e} is at least the payments of the players with sinks in Te ∗, i.e., c (Te ∗ U {e})> P (Te ∗).
Let B be the set of bad edges.
Therefore, in T0 for every edge e, we have that c (Te0 U {e}) <P (T0e).
What remain is to find payments p ¯ for the players in Γ (T0) such that they will buy the tree T0 and every player in Γ (T0) will lower its cost, i.e. ci (p)> ci (¯ p) for i E Γ (T0).
(Recall that the payments have the restriction that player i can only pay for edges on the path from s to ti.)
We will now define the coalition payments ¯ p. Let ci (¯ p, T0 e ∈ Te ¯ pi (e) be the payments of player i for the subtree T0e.
Consider the following bottom up process that defines ¯ p.
We assign the payments of edge e in T0, after we assign payments to all the edges in T0e.
Therefore, we can update the payments p ¯ of players i E Γ (T0e), by setting
where we used the fact that E e).

Strong Equilibrium in Cost Sharing Connection Games *
ABSTRACT
In this work we study cost sharing connection games, where each player has a source and sink he would like to connect, and the cost of the edges is either shared equally (fair connection games) or in an arbitrary way (general connection games).
We study the graph topologies that guarantee the existence of a strong equilibrium (where no coalition can improve the cost of each of its members) regardless of the specific costs on the edges.
Our main existence results are the following: (1) For a single source and sink we show that there is always a strong equilibrium (both for fair and general connection games).
(2) For a single source multiple sinks we show that for a series parallel graph a strong equilibrium always exists (both for fair and general connection games).
(3) For multi source and sink we show that an extension parallel graph always admits a strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
As for the quality of the strong equilibrium we show that in any fair connection games the cost of a strong equilibrium is Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
(This should be contrasted with the Ω (n) price of anarchy for the same setting.)
For single source general connection games and single source single sink fair connection games, we show that a strong equilibrium is always an optimal solution.
* Research supported in part by a grant of the Israel Science Foundation, Binational Science Foundation (BSF), GermanIsraeli Foundation (GIF), Lady Davis Fellowship, an IBM faculty award, and the IST Programme of the European Community, under the PASCAL Network of Excellence, IST-2002-506778.
This publication only reflects the authors' views.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Computational game theory has introduced the issue of incentives to many of the classical combinatorial optimization problems.
The view that the demand side is many times not under the control of a central authority that optimizes the global performance, but rather under the control of individuals with different incentives, has led already to many important insights.
Consider classical routing and transportation problems such as multicast or multi-commodity problems, which are many times viewed as follows.
We are given a graph with edge costs and connectivity demands between nodes, and our goal is to find a minimal cost solution.
The classical centralized approach assumes that all the individual demands can both be completely coordinated and have no individual incentives.
The game theory point of view would assume that each individual demand is controlled by a player that optimizes its own utility, and the resulting outcome could be far from the optimal solution.
When considering individual incentives one needs to discuss the appropriate solution concept.
Much of the research in computational game theory has focused on the classical Nash equilibrium as the primary solution concept.
Indeed Nash equilibrium has many benefits, and most importantly it always exists (in mixed strategies).
However, the solution concept of Nash equilibrium is resilient only to unilateral deviations, while in reality, players may be able to coordinate their actions.
A strong equilibrium [4] is a state from which no coalition (of any size) can deviate and improve the utility of every member of the coalition (while possibly lowering the utility
of players outside the coalition).
This resilience to deviations by coalitions of the players is highly attractive, and one can hope that once a strong equilibrium is reached it is highly likely to sustain.
From a computational game theory point of view, an additional benefit of a strong equilibrium is that it has a potential to reduce the distance between the optimal solution and the solution obtained as an outcome of selfish behavior.
The strong price of anarchy (SPoA), introduced in [1], is the ratio between the cost of the worst strong equilibrium and the cost of an optimal solution.
Obviously, SPoA is meaningful only in those cases where a strong equilibrium exists.
A major downside of strong equilibrium is that most games do not admit any strong equilibrium.
Even simple classical games like the prisoner's dilemma do not posses any strong equilibrium (which is also an example of a congestion game that does not posses a strong equilibriums).
This unfortunate fact has reduced the concentration in strong equilibrium, despite its highly attractive properties.
Yet, [1] have identified two broad families of games, namely job scheduling and network formation, where a strong equilibrium always exists and the SPoA is significantly lower than the price of anarchy (which is the ratio between the worst Nash equilibrium and the optimal solution [15, 18, 5, 6]).
In this work we concentrate on cost sharing connection games, introduced by [3, 2].
In such a game, there is an underlying directed graph with edge costs, and individual users have connectivity demands (between a source and a sink).
We consider two models.
The fair cost connection model [2] allows each player to select a path from the source to the sink2.
In this game the cost of an edge is shared equally between all the players that selected the edge, and the cost of the player is the sum of its costs on the edges it selected.
The general connection game [3] allows each player to offer prices for edges.
In this game an edge is bought if the sum of the offers at least covers its cost, and the cost of the player is the sum of its offers on the bought edges (in both games we assume that the player has to guarantee the connectivity between its source and sink).
In this work we focus on two important issues.
The first one is identifying under what conditions the existence of a strong equilibrium is guaranteed, and the second one is the quality of the strong equilibria.
For the existence part, we identify families of graph topologies that possess some strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs.
One can view this separation between the graph topology and the edge costs, as a separation between the underlying infrastructure and the costs the players observe to purchase edges.
While one expects the infrastructure to be stable over long periods of time, the costs the players observe can be easily modified over short time periods.
Such a topological characterization of the underlying infrastructure provides a network designer topological conditions that will ensure stability in his network.
Our results are as follows.
For the single commodity case (all the players have the same source and sink), there is a strong equilibrium in any graph (both for fair and general connection games).
Moreover, the strong equilibrium is also swhile any congestion game is known to admit at least one Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [16].
2The fair cost sharing scheme is also attractive from a mechanism design point of view, as it is a strategyproof costsharing mechanism [14].
the optimal solution (namely, the players share a shortest path from the common source to the common sink).
For the case of a single source and multiple sinks (for example, in a multicast tree), we show that in a fair connection game there is a strong equilibrium if the underlying graph is a series parallel graph, and we show an example of a nonseries parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
For the case of multi-commodity (multi sources and sinks), we show that in a fair connection game if the graph is an extension parallel graph then there is always a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a series parallel graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
As far as we know, we are the first to provide a topological characterization for equilibrium existence in multi-commodity and single-source network games.
For any fair connection game we show that if there exists a strong equilibrium it is at most a factor of Θ (log n) from the optimal solution, where n is the number of players.
This should be contrasted with the Θ (n) bound that exists for the price of anarchy [2].
For single source general connection games, we show that any series parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium, and we show an example of a graph that does not have a strong equilibrium.
In this case we also show that any strong equilibrium is optimal.
Related work
Topological characterizations for single-commodity network games have been recently provided for various equilibrium properties, including equilibrium existence [12, 7, 8], equilibrium uniqueness [10] and equilibrium efficiency [17, 11].
The existence of pure Nash equilibrium in single-commodity network congestion games with player-specific costs or weights was studied in [12].
The existence of strong equilibrium was studied in both utility-decreasing (e.g., routing) and utility-increasing (e.g., fair cost-sharing) congestion games.
[7, 8] have provided a full topological characterization for a SE existence in single-commodity utility-decreasing congestion games, and showed that a SE always exists if and only if the underlying graph is extension-parallel.
[19] have shown that in single-commodity utility-increasing congestion games, the topological characterization is essentially equivalent to parallel links.
In addition, they have shown that these results hold for correlated strong equilibria as well (in contrast to the decreasing setting, where correlated strong equilibria might not exist at all).
While the fair cost sharing games we study are utility increasing network congestion games, we derive a different characterization than [19] due to the different assumptions regarding the players' actions .3
2.
MODEL
2.1 Game Theory definitions
A game Λ = <N, (Σi), (ci)> has a finite set N = {1,..., n} of players.
Player i E N has a set Σi of actions, the joint action set is Σ = Σs x · · · x Σn and a joint action S E Σ is also called a profile.
The cost function of player i is
ci: Σ--+ R +, which maps the joint action S E Σ to a non-negative real number.
Let S = (S1,..., Sn) denote the profile of actions taken by the players, and let S − i = (S1,..., Si − 1, Si +1,..., Sn) denote the profile of actions taken by all players other than player i. Note that S = (Si, S − i).
The social cost of a game A is the sum of the costs of the players, and we denote by OPT (A) the minimal social cost of a game A. i.e., OPT (A) = minS ∈ Σ costΛ (S), where costΛ (S) = Ei ∈ N ci (S).
A joint action S E Σ is a pure Nash equilibrium if no player i E N can benefit from unilaterally deviating from his action to another action, i.e., ` di E N ` dS0i E Σi: ci (S − i, S0i)> ci (S).
We denote by NE (A) the set of pure Nash equilibria in the game A. Resilience to coalitions: A pure deviation of a set of players Γ C N (also called coalition) specifies an action for each player in the coalition, i.e., - y E Xi ∈ ΓΣi.
A joint action S E Σ is not resilient to a pure deviation of a coalition Γ if there is a pure joint action - y of Γ such that ci (S − Γ, - y) <ci (S) for every i E Γ (i.e., the players in the coalition can deviate in such a way that each player in the coalition reduces its cost).
A pure Nash equilibrium S E Σ is a k-strong equilibrium, if there is no coalition Γ of size at most k, such that S is not resilient to a pure deviation by Γ.
We denote by k-SE (A) the set of k-strong equilibria in the game A.
We denote by SE (A) the set of n-strong equilibria, and call S E SE (A) a strong equilibrium (SE).
Next we define the Price of Anarchy [9], Price of Stability [2], and their extension to Strong Price of Anarchy and Strong Price of Stability.
of anarchy (k-SPoA) for the game A.
The Price of Anarchy (PoA) is the ratio between the maximal cost of a pure Nash equilibrium (assuming one exists) and the social optimum, i.e., maxS ∈ NE (Λ) costΛ (S) / OPT (A).
Similarly, the Price of Stability (PoS) is the ratio between the minimal cost of a pure Nash equilibrium and the social optimum, i.e., minS ∈ NE (Λ) costΛ (S) / OPT (A).
The k-Strong Price of Anarchy (k-SPoA) is the ratio between the maximal cost of a k-strong equilibrium (assuming one exists) and the social optimum, i.e., maxS ∈ k-SE (Λ) costΛ (S) / OPT (A).
The SPoA is the n-SPoA.
Similarly, the Strong Price of Stability (SPoS) is the ratio between the minimal cost of a pure strong equilibrium and the social optimum, i.e., minS ∈ SE (Λ) costΛ (S) / OPT (A).
Note that both k-SPoA and SPoS are defined only if some strong equilibrium exists.
2.2 Cost Sharing Connection Games
A cost sharing connection game has an underlying directed graph G = (V, E) where each edge e E E has an associated cost ce> 04.
In a connection game each player i E N has an associated source si and sink ti.
In a fair connection game the actions Σi of player i include all the paths from si to ti.
The cost of each edge is shared equally by the set of all players whose paths contain it.
Given a joint action, the cost of a player is the sum of his costs on the edges it selected.
More formally, the cost function of each player on an edge e, in a joint action S, is fe (ne (S)) = ce ne (S), where ne (S) is the number of players that selected a path containing edge e in ci (S) = E S.
The cost of player i, when selecting path Qi E Σi is e ∈ Qi fe (ne (S)).
4In some of the existence proofs, we assume that ce> 0 for simplicity.
The full version contains the complete proofs for the case ce> 0.
In a general connection game the actions Σi of player i is a payment vector pi, where pi (e) is how much player i is offering to contribute to the cost of edge e. 5 Given a profile p, any edge e such that Ei pi (e)> ce is considered bought, and Ep denotes the set of bought edges.
Let Gp = (V, Ep) denote the graph bought by the players for profile p = (p1,..., pn).
Clearly, each player tries to minimize his total payment which is ci (p) = & ∈ Ep pi (e) if si is connected to ti in Gp, and infinity otherwise .6 We denote by c (p) = Ei ci (p) the total cost under the profile p. For a subgraph H of G we denote the total cost of the edges in H by c (H).
A symmetric connection game implies that the source and sink of all the players are identical.
(We also call a symmetric connection game a single source single sink connection game, or a single commodity connection game.)
A single source connection game implies that the sources of all the players are identical.
Finally, A multi commodity connection game implies that each player has its own source and sink.
2.3 Extension Parallel and Series Parallel Directed Graphs
Our directed graphs would be acyclic, and would have a source node (from which all nodes are reachable) and a sink node (which every node can reach).
We first define the following actions for composition of directed graphs.
• Identification: The identification operation allows to collapse two nodes to one.
More formally, given graph G = (V, E) we define the identification of a node v1 E V and v2 E V forming a new node v E V as creating a new graph G0 = (V0, E0), where V 0 = V--{v1, v2} U {v} and E0 includes the edges of E where the edges of v1 and v2 are now connected to v. • Parallel composition: Given two directed graphs, G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2), with sources s1 E V1 and s2 E V2 and sinks t1 E V1 and t2 E V2, respectively, we define a new graph G = G1IIG2 as follows.
Let G0 = (V1 U V2, E1 U E2) be the union graph.
To create G = G1IIG2 we identify the sources s1 and s2, forming a new source node s, and identify the sinks t1 and t2, forming a new sink t. • Series composition: Given two directed graphs, G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2), with sources s1 E V1 and s2 E V2 and sinks t1 E V1 and t2 E V2, respectively, we define a new graph G = G1--+ G2 as follows.
Let G0 = (V1 U V2, E1 U E2) be the union graph.
To create G = G1--+ G2 we identify the vertices t1 and s2, forming a new vertex u.
The graph G has a source s = s1 and a sink t = t2.
• Extension composition: A series composition when
one of the graphs, G1 or G2, is composed of a single directed edge is an extension composition, and we denote it by G = G1--+ e G2.
An extension parallel graph (EPG) is a graph G consisting of either: (1) a single directed edge (s, t), (2) a graph G = G1IIG2 or (3) a graph G = G1--+ e G2, where G1 and G2 are
extension parallel graphs (and in the extension composition either G1 or G2 is a single edge.)
.
A series parallel graph (SPG) is a graph G consisting of either: (1) a single directed edge (s, t), (2) a graph G = G1 | | G2 or (3) a graph G = G1 → G2, where G1 and G2 are series parallel graphs.
Given a path Q and two vertices u, v on Q, we denote the subpath of Q from u to v by Qu, v.
The following lemma, whose proof appears in the full version, would be the main topological tool in the case of single source graph.
LEMMA 2.1.
Let G be an SPG with source s and sink t. Given a path Q, from s to t, and a vertex t', there exist a vertex y ∈ Q, such that for any path Q' from s to t', the path Q' contains y and the paths Q' y, t, and Q are edge disjoint.
(We call the vertex y the intersecting vertex of Q and t'.)
3.
FAIR CONNECTION GAMES
This section derives our results for fair connection games.
3.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium
While it is known that every fair connection game possesses a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies [2], this is not necessarily the case for a strong equilibrium.
In this section, we study the existence of strong equilibrium in fair connection games.
We begin with a simple case, showing that every symmetric fair connection game possesses a strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
Let s' be the source and t' be the sink of all the players.
We show that a profile S in which all the players choose the same shortest path Q (from the source s' to the sink t') is a strong equilibrium.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then there is a coalition Γ that can deviate to a new profile S' such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Let Q' j be a new path used by player j ∈ Γ.
Since Q is a shortest path, it holds that c (Q' j \ (Q ∩ Q' j)) ≥ c (Q \ (Q ∩ Q' j)), for any path Q' j. Therefore for every player j ∈ Γ we have that cj (S') ≥ cj (S).
However, this contradicts the fact that all players in Γ reduce their cost.
(In fact, no player in Γ has reduced its cost.)
While every symmetric fair connection game admits a SE, it does not hold for every fair connection game.
In what follows, we study the network topologies that admit a strong equilibrium for any assignment of edge costs, and give examples of topologies for which a strong equilibrium does not exist.
The following lemma, whose proof appears in the full version, plays a major role in our proofs of the existence of SE.
LEMMA 3.2.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on a series parallel graph G with source s and sink t. Assume that player i has si = s and ti = t and that Λ has some SE.
Let S be a SE that minimizes the cost of player i (out of all SE), i.e., ci (S) = minT ESE (Λ) ci (T) and let S * be the profile that minimizes the cost of player i (out of all possible profiles), i.e., ci (S *) = minT EΣ ci (T).
Then, ci (S) = ci (S *).
The next lemma considers parallel composition.
LEMMA 3.3.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on graph G = G1 | | G2, where G1 and G2 are series parallel graphs.
If every fair connection game on the graphs G1 and G2 possesses a strong equilibrium, then the game Λ possesses a strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
Let G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2) have sources s1 and s2 and sinks t1 and t2, respectively.
Let Ti be the set of players with an endpoint in Vi \ {s, t}, for i ∈ {1, 2}.
(An endpoint is either a source or a sink of a player).
Let T3 be the set of players j such that sj = s and tj = t. Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T3 and T2 ∪ T3, respectively.
Let S' and S' ' be the SE in Λ1 and Λ2 that minimizes the cost of players in T3, respectively.
Assume w.l.o.g. that ci (S') ≤ ci (S' ') where player i ∈ T3.
In addition, let Λ' 2 be the game on the graph G2 with players T2 and let S ¯ be a SE in Λ' 2.
We will show that the profile S = S' ∪ S ¯ is a SE in Λ.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ that can deviate such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
By Lemma 3.2 and the assumption that ci (S') ≤ ci (S' '), a player j ∈ T3 cannot improve his cost.
Therefore, Γ ⊆ T1 ∪ T2.
But this is a contradiction to S' being a SE in Λ1 or S ¯ being a SE in Λ' 2.
The following theorem considers the case of single source fair connection games.
PROOF.
We prove the theorem by induction on the network size | V |.
The claim obviously holds if | V | = 2.
We show the claim for a series composition, i.e., G = G1 → G2, and for a parallel composition, i.e., G = G1 | | G2, where G1 = (V1, E1) and G2 = (V2, E2) are SPG's with sources s1, s2, and sinks t1, t2, respectively.
series composition.
Let G = G1 → G2.
Let T1 be the set of players j such that tj ∈ V1, and T2 be the set of players j such that tj ∈ V2 \ {s2}.
Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T2 and T2, respectively.
For every player i ∈ T2 with action Si in the game Λ let Si ∩ E1 be his induced action in the game Λ1, and let Si ∩ E2 be his induced action in the game Λ2.
Let S' be a SE in Λ1 that minimizes the cost of players in T2 (such a SE exists by the induction hypothesis and Lemma 3.2).
Let S' ' be any SE in Λ2.
We will show that the profile S = S' ∪ S' ' is a SE in the game Λ, i.e., for player j ∈ T2 we use the profile Sj = S' j ∪ S' ' j.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ that can deviate such that the cost of every player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Now, there are two cases: Case 1: Γ ⊆ T1.
This is a contradiction to S' being a SE.
Case 2: There exists a player j ∈ Γ ∩ T2.
By Lemma 3.2, player j cannot improve his cost in Λ1 so the improvement is due to Λ2.
Consider the coalition Γ ∩ T2, it would still improve its cost.
However, this contradicts the fact that S' ' is a SE in Λ2.
parallel composition.
Follows from Lemma 3.3.
While multi-commodity fair connection games on series parallel graphs do not necessarily possess a SE (see Theorem 3.6), fair connection games on extension parallel graphs always possess a strong equilibrium.
THEOREM 3.5.
Every fair connection game on an extension parallel graph possesses a strong equilibrium.
Figure 1: Graph topologies.
PROOF.
We prove the theorem by induction on the network size | V |.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on an EPG G = (V, E).
The claim obviously holds if | V | = 2.
If the graph G is a parallel composition of two EPG graphs G1 and G2, then the claim follows from Lemma 3.3.
It remains to prove the claim for extension composition.
Suppose the graph G is an extension composition of the graph G1 consisting of a single edge e = (s1, t1) and an EPG G2 = (V2, E2) with terminals s2, t2, such that s = s1 and t = t2.
(The case that G2 is a single edge is similar.)
Let T1 be the set of players with source s1 and sink t1 (i.e., their path is in G1).
Let T2 be the set of players with source and sink in G2.
Let T3 be the set of players with source s1 and sink in V2 \ t1.
Let Λ1 and Λ2 be the original game on the respective graphs G1 and G2 with players T1 ∪ T3 and T2 ∪ T3, respectively.
Let S0, S00 be SE in Λ1 and Λ2 respectively.
We will show that the profile S = S0 ∪ S00 is a SE in the game Λ.
Suppose by contradiction that S is not a SE.
Then, there is a coalition Γ of minimal size that can deviate such that the cost of any player j ∈ Γ decreases.
Clearly, T1 ∩ Γ = φ, since players in T1 have a single strategy.
Hence, Γ ⊆ T2 ∪ T3.
Any player j ∈ T2 ∪ T3 cannot improve his cost in Λ1.
Therefore, any player j ∈ T2 ∪ T3 improves his cost in Λ2.
However, this contradicts the fact that S00 is a SE in Λ2.
In the following theorem we provide a few examples of topologies in which a strong equilibrium does not exist, showing that our characterization is almost tight.
THEOREM 3.6.
The following connection games exist: (1) There exists a multi-commodity fair connection game on a series parallel graph that does not possess a strong equilibrium.
(2) There exists a single source fair connection game that does not possess a strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
For claim (1) consider the graph depicted in Figure 1 (a).
This game has a unique NE where S1 = {e, c}, S2 = {b, f}, and each player has a cost of 5.7 However, consider the following coordinated deviation S0.
S01 = {a, b, c}, 7In any NE of the game, player 1 will buy the edge e and player 2 will buy the edge f.
This is since the alternate path, in the respective part, will cost the player 2.5.
Thus, player 1 (player 2) will buy the edge c (edge b) alone, and each player will have a cost of 5.
Figure 2: Example of a single source connection game that does not admit SE.
and S02 = {b, c, d}.
In this profile, each player pays a cost of 4, and thus improves its cost.
For claim (2) consider a single source fair connection game on the graph G depicted in Figure 2.
There are two players.
Player i = 1, 2 wishes to connect the source s to its sink ti and the unique NE is S1 = {a, b}, S2 = {a, c}, and each player has a cost of 2.
8 Then, both players can deviate to S01 = {h, f, d} and S02 = {h, f, e}, and decrease their costs to 2 − e/2.
Unfortunately, our characterization is not completely tight.
The graph in Figure 1 (b) is an example of a non-extension parallel graph which always admits a strong equilibrium.
3.2 Strong Price of Anarchy
While the price of anarchy in fair connection games can be as bad as n, the following theorem shows that the strong
THEOREM 3.7.
The strong price of anarchy of a fair connection game with n players is at most H (n).
PROOF.
Let Λ be a fair connection game on the graph G.
We denote by Λ (Γ) the game played on the graph G by a set of players Γ, where the action of player i ∈ Γ remains Σi (the same as in Λ).
Let S = (S1,..., Sn) be a profile in the game Λ.
We denote by S (Γ) = SΓ the induced profile of players in Γ in the game Λ (Γ).
Let ne (S (Γ)) denote the load of edge e under the profile S (Γ) in the game Λ (Γ), i.e., ne (S (Γ)) = | {j | j ∈ Γ, e ∈ Sj} |.
Similar to congestion games [16, 13] we denote by 4) (S (Γ)) the potential function of the profile S (Γ) in the game Λ (Γ), where 4) (S (Γ)) = ne (S (Γ))
and define 4) (S (φ)) = 0.
In our case, it holds that
Let S be a SE, and let S ∗ be the profile of the optimal solution.
We define an order on the players as follows.
Let Γn = {1,..., n} be the set of all the players.
For each k =
n,..., 1, since S is a SE, there exists a player in Γk, w.l.o.g. call it player k, such that,
where the first inequality follows since the sum of the right hand side of equation (3) telescopes, and the second equality follows from equation (1).
Next we bound the SPoA when coalitions of size at most k are allowed.
THEOREM 3.8.
The k-SPoA of a fair connection game with n players is at most nk · H (k).
PROOF.
Let S be a SE of Λ, and S ∗ be the profile of the optimal solution of Λ.
To simplify the proof, we assume that n/k is an integer.
We partition the players to n/k groups T1,..., Tn/k each of size k. Let Λj be the game on the graph G played by the set of players Tj.
Let S (Tj) denote the profile of the k players in Tj in the game Λj induced by the profile S of the game Λ.
By Theorem 3.7, it holds that for each game Λj, j = 1,..., n/k,
where the first inequality follows since for each group Tj and player i E Tj, it holds that ci (S) <ci (S (Tj)).
Next we show an almost matching lower bound.
(The lower bound is at most H (n) = O (log n) from the upper bound and both for k = O (1) and k = Ω (n) the difference is only a constant.)
Figure 3: Example of a network topology in which SPoS> PoS.
PROOF.
For the lower bound of H (n) we observe that in the example presented in [2], the unique Nash equilibrium is also a strong equilibrium, and therefore k-SPoA = H (n) for any 1 <k <n. For the lower bound of n/k, consider a graph composed of two parallel links of costs 1 and n/k.
Consider the profile S in which all n players use the link of cost n/k.
The cost of each player is 1/k, while if any coalition of size at most k deviates to the link of cost 1, the cost of each player is at least 1/k.
Therefore, the profile S is a k-SE, and k-SPoA = n/k.
The results of Theorems 3.7 and 3.8 can be extended to concave cost functions.
Consider the extended fair connection game, where each edge has a cost which depends on the number of players using that edge, ce (ne).
We assume that the cost function ce (ne) is a nondecreasing, concave function.
Note that the cost of an edge ce (ne) might increase with the number of players using it, but the cost per player fe (ne) = ce (ne) / ne decreases when ce (ne) is concave.
THEOREM 3.10.
The strong price of anarchy of a fair connection game with nondecreasing concave edge cost functions and n players is at most H (n).
PROOF.
The proof is analogues to the proof of Theorem 3.7.
For the proof we show that cost (S) <4) (S ∗) <H (n) · cost (S ∗).
We first show the first inequality.
Since the function ce (x) is concave, the cost per player ce (x) / x is a nonincreasing function.
Therefore inequality (3) in the proof of Theorem 3.7 holds.
Summing inequality (3) over all players we obtain cost (S) = Ei ci (S) <4) (S ∗ (Γn)) − 4) (S ∗ (φ)) = 4) (S ∗).
The second inequality follows since ce (x) is nondecreasing and therefore Enex = 1 (ce (x) / x) <H (ne) · ce (ne).
Using the arguments in the proof of Theorem 3.10 and the proof of Theorem 3.8 we derive,
Since the set of strong equilibria is contained in the set of Nash equilibria, it must hold that SPoA <PoA, meaning that the SPoA can only be improved compared to the PoA.
However, with respect to the price of stability the opposite direction holds, that is, SPoS> PoS.
We next show that there exists a fair connection game in which the inequality is strict.
Figure 4: Example of a single source general connection game that does not admit a strong equilibrium.
The edges that are not labeled with costs have a cost of zero.
THEOREM 3.12.
There exists a fair connection game in which SPoS> PoS.
PROOF.
Consider a single source fair connection game on the graph G depicted in Figure 3.10 Player i = 1,..., n wishes to connect the source s to his sink ti.
Assume that each player i = 1,..., n − 2 has his own path of cost 1/i from s to ti and players i = n − 1, n have a joint path of cost 2/n from s to ti.
Additionally, all players can share a common path of cost 1 + e for some small e> 0.
The optimal solution connects all players through the common path of cost 1 + e, and this is also a Nash equilibrium with total cost 1 + E.
It is easy to verify that the solution where each player i = 1,..., n − 2 uses his own path and users i = n − 1, n use their joint path is the unique strong equilibrium of this game with total cost En − 2 i + 2
While the example above shows that the SPoS may be greater than the PoS, the upper bound of H (n) = Θ (log n), proven for the PoS [2], serves as an upper bound for the SPoS as well.
This is a direct corollary from theorem 3.7, as SPoS <SPoA by definition.
COROLLARY 3.13.
The strong price of stability of a fair connection game with n players is at most H (n) = O (log n).
4.
GENERAL CONNECTION GAMES
In this section, we derive our results for general connection games.
4.1 Existence of Strong Equilibrium
We begin with a characterization of the existence of a strong equilibrium in symmetric general connection games.
Similar to Theorem 3.1 (using a similar proof) we establish, THEOREM 4.1.
In every symmetric fair connection game there exists a strong equilibrium.
While every single source general connection game possesses a pure Nash equilibrium [3], it does not necessarily admit some strong equilibrium .11
the fair-connection game inspired this example.
THEOREM 4.2.
There exists a single source general connection game that does not admit any strong equilibrium.
PROOF.
Consider single source general connection game with 3 players on the graph depicted in Figure 4.
Player i wishes to connect the source s with its sink ti.We need to consider only the NE profiles: (i) if all three players use the link of cost 3, then there must be two agents whose total sum exceeds 2, thus they can both reduce cost by deviating to an edge of cost 2 − E. (ii) if two of the players use an edge of cost 2 − e jointly, and the third player uses a different edge of cost 2 − e, then, the players with non-zero payments can deviate to the path with the edge of cost 3 and reduce their costs (since before the deviation the total payments of the players is 4 − 2e).
We showed that none of the NE are SE, and thus the game does not possess any SE.
Next we show that for the class of series parallel graphs, there is always a strong equilibrium in the case of a single source.
PROOF.
Let Λ be a single source general connection game on a SPG G = (V, E) with source s and sink t.
We present an algorithm that constructs a specific SE.
We first consider the following partial order between the players.
For players i and j, we have that i → j if there is a directed path from ti to tj.
We complete the partial order to a full order (in an arbitrary way), and w.l.o.g. we assume that 1 → 2 → · · · → n.
The algorithm COMPUTE-SE, considers the players in an increasing order, starting with player 1.
Each player i will fully buy a subset of the edges, and any player j> i will consider the cost of those (bought) edges as zero.
When COMPUTE-SE considers player j, the cost of the edges that players 1 to j − 1 have bought is set to zero, and player j fully buys a shortest path Qj from s to tj.
Namely, for every edges e G Qj \ Ui <jQi we have pj (e) = ce and otherwise pj (e) = 0.
We next show that the algorithm COMPUTESE computes a SE.
Assume by way of contradiction that the profile p is not a SE.
Then, there exists a coalition that can improve the costs of all its players by a deviation.
Let Γ be such a coalition of minimal size and let player i = max {j G Γ}.
For a player j G Γ let ¯ Qj and ¯ pj be the path and payment of player j after the deviation, respectively.
Let Q' be a path from the sink of player i, i.e. ti, to the sink of G, i.e. t.
Then Q = ¯ Qi U Q' is a path from the source s to the sink t. For any player j <i, let yj be the intersecting vertex of Q and tj (by Lemma 2.1 one is guarantee to exist).
Let y be the furthest vertex on the path Q such that y = yj for some j <i.
The path from the source s to node y was fully paid for by players j <i in p (before the deviation).
There are two cases we consider.
case a: After the deviation player i does not pay for edges in U j ∈ Γ \ {i} ¯ Qj.
This is a contradiction to the minimality of the coalition Γ size, since the players in Γ \ {i} can form a smaller coalition with payments ¯ p. case b: Otherwise, we show that player i cost after the deviation, i.e. ci (¯ p), is at least his cost before the deviation, i.e. ci (p), contradicting the fact that player i improved his cost.
Recall that given two vertices u, v on path Q ¯ we denote by ¯ Qu, v the subpath of Q ¯ from u to v.
Before the deviation of the coalition Γ, a path from s to y was fully paid for by the players j <i. Next we show that no player k> i pays for any edge on any path from s to ti.
Consider a player k> i and let Q0k = Qk U Q00k, where Q00k is a path connecting tk to t. Let yk be the intersecting vertex of Q0k and ti.
Since there exists a path from s to yk that was fully paid for by players j <k before the deviation, in particularly the path Qis, yk, player k will not pay for any edge on any path connecting s and yk.
Therefore player i fully pays for all edges on the path ¯ Qiy, ti, i.e., ¯ pi (e) = ce for all edges e E ¯ Qiy, ti.
Now consider the algorithm COMPUTESE at the step when player i selects a shortest path from the source s to its sink ti and determines his payment pi.
At this point, player i could buy the path ¯ Qiy, ti, since a path from s to y was already paid for by players j <i. Hence, ci (¯ p)> ci (p).
This contradicts the fact that player i improved its cost and therefore not all the players in Γ reduce their cost.
This implies that p is a strong equilibrium.
4.2 Strong Price of Anarchy
While for every single source general connection game, it holds that PoS = 1 [3], the price of anarchy can be as large as n, even for two parallel edges.
Here, we show that any strong equilibrium in single source general connection games yields the optimal cost.
PROOF.
Let p = (p1,..., pn) be a strong equilibrium, and let T ∗ be the minimum cost Steiner tree on all players, rooted at the (single) source s. Let Te ∗ be the subtree of T ∗ disconnected from s when edge e is removed.
Let Γ (Te) be the set of players which have sinks in Te.
For a set of edges E, let c (E) = Ee ∈ E ce.
Let P (Te) = Ei ∈ Γ (Te) ci (p).
Assume by way of contradiction that c (p)> c (T ∗).
We will show that there exists a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, that connects a subset of players Γ C _ N, and a new set of payments ¯ p, such that for each i E Γ, ci (¯ p) <ci (p).
This will contradict the assumption that p is a strong equilibrium.
First we show how to find a sub-tree T0 of T ∗, such that for any edge e, the payments of players with sinks in Te ∗ is more than the cost of Te ∗ U {e}.
To build T0, define an edge e to be bad if the cost of Te ∗ U {e} is at least the payments of the players with sinks in Te ∗, i.e., c (Te ∗ U {e})> P (Te ∗).
Let B be the set of bad edges.
We define T0 to be T ∗ − Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}).
Note that we can find a subset B0 of B such that Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}) is equal to Ue ∈ B (Te ∗ U {e}) and for any e1, e2 E B0 we have T ∗ e1 n T ∗ ee = 0.
(The set B0 will include any edge e E B for which there is no other edge e0 E B on the path from e to the source s.) Considering the edges in e E B0 we can see that any subtree Te ∗ we delete from T cannot decrease the difference between the payments and the cost of the remaining tree.
Therefore, in T0 for every edge e, we have that c (Te0 U {e}) <P (T0e).
Now we have a tree T0 and our coalition will be Γ (T0).
What remain is to find payments p ¯ for the players in Γ (T0) such that they will buy the tree T0 and every player in Γ (T0) will lower its cost, i.e. ci (p)> ci (¯ p) for i E Γ (T0).
(Recall that the payments have the restriction that player i can only pay for edges on the path from s to ti.)
We will now define the coalition payments ¯ p. Let ci (¯ p, T0 e ∈ Te ¯ pi (e) be the payments of player i for the subtree T0e.
We will show that for every subtree T0 e, ci (¯ p, Te0 U {e}) <ci (p), and hence ci (¯ p) <ci (p).
Consider the following bottom up process that defines ¯ p.
We assign the payments of edge e in T0, after we assign payments to all the edges in T0e.
This implies that when we assign payments for e, we have that the sum of the payments in Te0 is equal to
know that c (Te0 U {e}) = c (T0e) + ce <P (T0e).
Therefore, we can update the payments p ¯ of players i E Γ (T0e), by setting
where we used the fact that E e).
Since ce <P (Γ (T0e)) − c (T0e) it follows that ci (¯ p, Te0 U {e}) <ci (p).