Quality of Equilibria in Resource Allocation Games

In situations where multiple parties are involved, individual selfish decisions result in outcomes that rarely align with what is best for society. In order to compare the quality of these outcomes with what is best for society, we need to predict which outcomes will occur. In game theory, the classic prediction is the Nash equilibrium, an outcome where no party can improve by deviating unilaterally. Nash equilibria are based on the assumption that parties choose their actions simultaneously. However, sequential decisions, where parties anticipate each other’s actions, are often considered more natural, and lead to different equilibria. We consider multiple equilibrium concepts for a variety of classes of games. The main class we consider, is the class of congestion games. Applications of congestion games include the allocation of scarce natural resources, the design of road networks in order to mitigate delays due to traffic jams, and the design of internet protocols that result in more efficient use of the available bandwidth