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Lecture by Max Klimm (Technische Universität Berlin): Complexity and Parametric Computation of Equilibria in Atomic Splittable Congestion Games

May 10, 2021 | 02:15 PM

We settle the complexity of computing an equilibrium in atomic splittable congestion games with player-specific affine cost functions as we show that the computation is PPAD-complete. To prove that the problem is contained in PPAD, we develop a homotopy method that traces an equilibrium for varying flow demands of the players. A key technique for this method is to describe the evolution of the equilibrium locally by a novel block Laplacian matrix where each entry of the Laplacian is a Laplacian again. These insights give rise to a path following formulation eventually putting the problem into PPAD. For the PPAD—hardness, we reduce from computing an approximate equilibrium for bimatrix win-lose games. As a byproduct of our analyse, we obtain that also computing a multi-class Wardrop equilibrium with class-dependent affine cost functions is PPAD-complete as well. As another byproduct, we obtain an algorithm that computes a continuum of equilibria parametrised by the players’ flow demand. For games with player-independent costs, this yields an output-polynomial algorithm. (Joint work with Philipp Warode)

Time & Location

May 10, 2021 | 02:15 PM

online

Freie Universität Berlin
Technische Universität Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)