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A new mechanism for the free-rider problem

Authors:

Sujay Sanghavi,

Bruce HajekAuthors Info & Claims

P2PECON '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Economics of peer-to-peer systems

Pages 122 - 127

https://doi.org/10.1145/1080192.1080200

Published: 22 August 2005 Publication History

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Abstract

The free-rider problem arises in the provisioning of public resources, when users of the resource have to contribute towards the cost of production. Selfish users may have a tendency to misrepresent preferences -- so as to minimize individual contributions -- leading to inefficient levels of production of the resource. Groves and Loeb formulated a classic model capturing this problem, and proposed (what later came to be known as) the VCG mechanism as a solution. However, in the presence of heterogeneous users and communication constraints, or in decentralized settings, implementing this mechanism places an unrealistic communication burden. In this paper we propose a class of alternative mechanisms for the same problem as considered by Groves and Loeb, but with the added constraint of severely limited communication between users and the provisioning authority. When these mechanisms are used, efficient production is ensured as a Nash equilibrium outcome, for a broad class of users. Furthermore, a natural bid update strategy is shown to globally converge to efficient Nash equilibria. An extension to multiple public goods with inter-related valuations is also presented.

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Cited By

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Xu ZLiu XWang HCui LHan XMeng F(2024)Free-rider or contributor: A dilemma in spatial threshold public goods gamesChaos, Solitons & Fractals10.1016/j.chaos.2024.115455187(115455)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2024.115455
Kwok Y(2012)BibliographyPeer-to-Peer Computing10.1201/b11091-10(175-195)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2012
https://doi.org/10.1201/b11091-10
Moscibroda TSchmid SWattenhofer R(2011)Topological Implications of Selfish Neighbor Selection in Unstructured Peer-to-Peer NetworksAlgorithmica10.1007/s00453-010-9398-961:2(419-446)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00453-010-9398-9
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Index Terms

A new mechanism for the free-rider problem
1. Mathematics of computing
  1. Mathematical analysis
    1. Mathematical optimization
2. Theory of computation
  1. Design and analysis of algorithms
    1. Mathematical optimization

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Published In

P2PECON '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Economics of peer-to-peer systems

August 2005

296 pages

ISBN:1595930264

DOI:10.1145/1080192

Program Chairs:
Eric Friedman
Cornell University
,
Emin Gun Sirer
Cornell University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 August 2005

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SIGCOMM05

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SIGCOMM05: ACM SIGCOMM 2005 Conference

August 22, 2005

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

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Cited By

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Xu ZLiu XWang HCui LHan XMeng F(2024)Free-rider or contributor: A dilemma in spatial threshold public goods gamesChaos, Solitons & Fractals10.1016/j.chaos.2024.115455187(115455)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2024.115455
Kwok Y(2012)BibliographyPeer-to-Peer Computing10.1201/b11091-10(175-195)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2012
https://doi.org/10.1201/b11091-10
Moscibroda TSchmid SWattenhofer R(2011)Topological Implications of Selfish Neighbor Selection in Unstructured Peer-to-Peer NetworksAlgorithmica10.1007/s00453-010-9398-961:2(419-446)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00453-010-9398-9
Yu KZhao J(2011)Design and Analysis of Credit Network over DHT File-Sharing NetworkPractical Applications of Intelligent Systems10.1007/978-3-642-25658-5_2(13-18)Online publication date: 2011
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25658-5_2
Guoxiaoli Zhaozhiming Guoping (2010)The analysis and realization of the P2P network security2010 2nd International Conference on Future Computer and Communication10.1109/ICFCC.2010.5497675(V3-45-V3-48)Online publication date: May-2010
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICFCC.2010.5497675
Qingjie WYu JYu MJie ZZheng Z(2009)Incentive compatible mechanism in P2P systemsProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Wireless communications, networking and mobile computing10.5555/1737966.1738465(4112-4115)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1737966.1738465
Wang QYu JYu MZhang JZhao Z(2009)Economic Model Based on Micro-Payment in P2P SystemsProceedings of the 2009 First IEEE International Conference on Information Science and Engineering10.1109/ICISE.2009.528(204-206)Online publication date: 26-Dec-2009
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Yu HLiu WPeng G(2009)A Synthetical Evaluation Method of Torpedo Maintainability Based on VR2009 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering10.1109/CISE.2009.5365945(1-4)Online publication date: Dec-2009
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Yu JWang QZhang JWang BDai J(2009)The Implement of Accounting Mechanism in P2P System2009 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering10.1109/CISE.2009.5362547(1-4)Online publication date: Dec-2009
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Anandasivam ANeumann D(2009)Reputation, Pricing and the E-Science GridEconomic Models and Algorithms for Distributed Systems10.1007/978-3-7643-8899-7_3(25-43)Online publication date: 2009
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