Keynote: Networks and Economics: Incentives, Algorithms and Pricing

Summary form only given. New network services, architectures or technologies have often been introduced or designed with scant regard to questions of economics or incentives; yet answering such questions is fundamental for the success of such services. We argue that any network resource allocation problem needs to consider the incentives of users or their agents to cooperate, and not just answer algorithmic design questions. We illustrate this by describing how aspects of Economics and Game Theory can be used alongside stochastic modelling to guide design of algorithms, protocols and real systems. By way of example, we consider three different application areas: the Internet, Wireless Mesh Networks and Home Networks. We also describe practical implementations we have built at MSR Cambridge.