Cooperation under Scarcity: The Sharer's Dilemma

Abstract. Many researchers have used game theory to study the problem of encouraging cooperation in peer-to-peer and mobile ad hoc networks, where resources are provided collectively by the users. Previous work has modelled the problem as either a multi-player social dilemma or a network of two-player prisoner’s dilemmas, but neither of these approaches captures a crucial aspect of the problem, namely scarcity: when resources are limited, players must not only consider how to establish and sustain cooperation with each opponent, but how to allocate resources among their opponents in order to maximise the total cooperation received. This paper presents a new game theoretic model of cooperation under scarcity, the sharer’s dilemma, and a simple expected utility strategy that is shown to perform well against a wide range of opponents. The expected utility strategy can easily be applied to file sharing networks to create an incentive for users to contribute resources.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: AIMS
• Authors: Michael Rogers, Saleem Bhatti
• Keywords: AIMS 2008, Computer Networks, Expected Utility Strategy, Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Multi-player Social Dilemma