research-article

An Equilibrium Analysis of Scrip Systems

Authors:

Eric J. Friedman,

Joseph Y. HalpernAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC), Volume 3, Issue 3

Article No.: 13, Pages 1 - 32

https://doi.org/10.1145/2659006

Published: 23 June 2015 Publication History

Abstract

A game-theoretic model of scrip (artificial currency) systems is analyzed. It is shown that relative entropy can be used to characterize the distribution of agent wealth when all agents use threshold strategies—that is, they volunteer to do work if and only if they have below a threshold amount of money. Monotonicity of agents' best-reply functions is used to show that scrip systems have pure strategy equilibria where all agents use threshold strategies. An algorithm is given that can compute such an equilibrium and the resulting distribution of wealth.

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An Equilibrium Analysis of Scrip Systems

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cover image ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation

ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation Volume 3, Issue 3

June 2015

100 pages

ISSN:2167-8375

EISSN:2167-8383

DOI:10.1145/2795422

Editors:
Vincent Conitzer
Duke University
,
Preston McAfee
Google

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Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 23 June 2015

Accepted: 01 July 2014

Revised: 01 May 2013

Received: 01 April 2012

Published in TEAC Volume 3, Issue 3

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