A major challenge in operation of wireless communications systems is the efficient use of radio resources. One important component of radio resource management is power control, which has been studied extensively in the context of voice communications. With increasing demand for wireless data services, it is necessary to establish power control algorithms for information sources other than voice. We present a power control solution for wireless data in the analytical setting of a game theoretic framework. In this context, the quality of service (QoS) a wireless terminal receives is referred to as the utility and distributed power control is a non-cooperative power control game where users maximize their utility. The outcome of the game results in a Nash equilibrium that is ine#cient. We introduce pricing of transmit powers in order to obtain Pareto improvement of the non-cooperative power control game, i.e. to obtain improvements in user utilities relative to the case with no pricing. Specifically, we consider a pricing function that is a linear function of the transmit power. The simplicity of the pricing function allows a distributed implementation where the price can be broadcast by the base station to all the terminals. We see that pricing is especially helpful in a heavily loaded system.

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Abstract—We consider a distributed power control scheme for wireless ad hoc networks, in which each user announces a price that reflects compensation paid by other users for their interference. We present an asynchronous distributed algorithm for updating power levels and prices. By relating this algorithm to myopic best response updates in a fictitious game, we are able to characterize convergence using supermodular game theory. Extensions of this algorithm to a multichannel network are also presented, in which users can allocate their power across multiple frequency bands. Index Terms—Distributed algorithms, game theory, power control, pricing. I.

Scale economies are commonplace in operations, yet, due to analytical challenges, relatively little is known about how ...rms should compete in their presence. This paper presents a model of competition between two ...rms that face scale economies; i.e., each ...rm's cost per unit of demand is decreasing in demand. A general framework is used, which incorporates competition between two service providers with price and time sensitive demand (a queuing game) and competition between two retailers with ...xed ordering costs and price sensitive consumers (an EOQ game). Reasonably general conditions are provided under which there exists at most one equilibrium with both ...rms participating in the market. We demonstrate, in the context of the queuing game, that the lower cost ...rm in equilibrium may have higher market share and a higher price, an enviable situation.

Developed by General Motors (GM), the Auto Choice Advisor web site (http://www.auto choiceadvisor.com) recommends vehicles to consumers based on their requirements and budget constraints. Through the web site, GM has access to large quantities of data that reflect consumer preferences. Motivated by the availability of such data, we formulate a non-parametric approach to multi-product pricing. We consider

In an electronic marketplace coalition formation allows buyers to enjoy a price discount for each item while combinatorial auction enables buyers to place bids for a bundle of items that are complementary. Coalition formation and combinatorial auction both help to improve the efficiency of a market and have received much attention from economists and computer scientists. But neither in laboratories nor in practice has there been literature on the situations where both coalition formation and combinatorial auctions exist. In this paper we consider an e-market where each buyer places a bid on a combination of items with a reservation cost, and sellers offer price discounts for each item based on volumes. We call coalition formation under this condition a Combinatorial Coalition Formation (CCF) problem since coalition formation is motivated by price discounts on single items while multiple items are complementary for buyers. By artificially dividing the reservation cost of each buyer appropriately among the items we can construct optimal coalitions with respect to each item. We then try to make these coalitions satisfy the complementarity of the items, and thus induce the optimal solution. Based on this idea we present polynomial-time algorithms to find a semi-optimal solution of CCF and a payoff division scheme that is in the core of the coalition when linear price functions are applied, and in the pseudo-core when general price functions are applied. Simulation results show that the algorithms obtain solutions in a satisfactory ratio to the optimal value.

We consider a general mechanism design setting where each agent can acquire (covert) information before participating in the mechanism. The central question is whether a mechanism exists that provides the efficient incentives for information acquisition ex-ante and implements the efficient allocation conditional on the private information ex-post. It is shown that in every private value environment the Vickrey-Clark-Groves mechanism guarantees both ex-ante as well as ex-post efficiency. In contrast, with common values, ex-ante and ex-post efficiency cannot be reconciled in general. Sufficient conditions in terms of sub- and supermodularity are provided when (all) ex-post efficient mechanisms lead to private under- or over-acquisition of information.

Abstract. We develop a theory of stability in many-to-many matching markets. We give conditions under wich the setwisestable set, a core-like concept, is nonempty and can be approached through an algorithm. The setwise-stable set coincides with the pairwise-stable set, and with the predictions of a non-cooperative bargaining model. The set-wise stable set possesses the canonical conflict/coincidence of interest properties from many-to-one, and one-to-one models. The theory parallels the standard theory of stability for many-to-one, and one-to-one, models. We provide results for a number of core-like solutions, besides the setwise-stable set. 1.

This paper surveys the modern economics literature on the role of neighborhoods in influencing socioeconomic outcomes. Neighborhood effects have been analyzed in a range of theoretical and applied contexts and have proven to be of interest in understanding questions ranging from the asymptotic properties of various evolutionary games to explaining the persistence of poverty in inner cities. As such, the survey covers a range of theoretical, econometric and empirical topics. One conclusion from the survey is that there is a need to better integrate findings from theory and econometrics into empirical studies; until this is done, empirical studies of the nature and magnitude of neighborhood effects are unlikely to persuade those skeptical about their importance.

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