Stackelberg competition

About: Stackelberg competition is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6611 publications have been published within this topic receiving 109213 citations.

A Stackelberg Game Approach Toward Socially-Aware Incentive Mechanisms for Mobile Crowdsensing

Abstract: Mobile crowdsensing has shown great potential in addressing large-scale data sensing problems by allocating sensing tasks to pervasive mobile users. The mobile users will participate in a crowdsensing platform if they can receive a satisfactory reward. In this paper, to effectively and efficiently recruit a sufficient number of mobile users, i.e., participants, we investigate an optimal incentive mechanism of a crowdsensing service provider. We apply a two-stage Stackelberg game to analyze the participation level of the mobile users and the optimal incentive mechanism of the crowdsensing service provider using backward induction. In order to motivate the participants, the incentive mechanism is designed by taking into account the social network effects from the underlying mobile social domain. We derive the analytical expressions for the discriminatory incentive as well as the uniform incentive mechanisms. To fit into practical scenarios, we further formulate a Bayesian Stackelberg game with incomplete information to analyze the interaction between the crowdsensing service provider and mobile users, where the social structure information, i.e., the social network effects, is uncertain. The existence and uniqueness of the Bayesian Stackelberg equilibrium is analytically validated by identifying the best response strategies of the mobile users. The numerical results corroborate the fact that the network effects significantly stimulate a higher mobile participation level and greater revenue for the crowdsensing service provider. In addition, the social structure information helps the crowdsensing service provider achieve greater revenue gain.

Green Cognitive Mobile Networks With Small Cells for Multimedia Communications in the Smart Grid Environment

Abstract: High-data-rate mobile multimedia applications can greatly increase energy consumption, leading to an emerging trend of addressing the “energy efficiency” aspect of mobile networks. Cognitive mobile networks with small cells are important techniques for meeting the high-data-rate requirements and improving the energy efficiency of mobile multimedia communications. However, most existing works do not consider the power grid, which provides electricity to mobile networks. Currently, the power grid is experiencing a significant shift from the traditional grid to the smart grid. In the smart grid environment, only considering energy efficiency may not be sufficient since the dynamics of the smart grid will have significant impacts on mobile networks. In this paper, we study green cognitive mobile networks with small cells in the smart grid environment. Unlike most existing studies on cognitive networks, where only the radio spectrum is sensed, our cognitive networks sense not only the radio spectrum environment but also the smart grid environment, based on which power allocation and interference management for multimedia communications are performed. We formulate the problems of electricity price decision, energy-efficient power allocation, and interference management as a three-stage Stackelberg game. A homogeneous Bertrand game with asymmetric costs is used to model price decisions made by the electricity retailers. A backward induction method is used to analyze the proposed Stackelberg game. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can significantly reduce operational expenditure and $\hbox{CO}_{2}$ emissions in cognitive mobile networks with small cells for multimedia communications.

Empirical Analysis of Competitive Product Line Pricing Decisions: Lead, Follow, or Move Together?

Abstract: Researchers have recently developed models for determining which market conduct best describes observed data. We apply these techniques from the "new empirical industrial organization" literature to the competitive product line pricing decision, where a firm strategically prices its brands when determining the profit-maximizing conduct in the market. Demand, cost, and market structure are estimated endogenously. Empirical results from analyzing price competition in the laundry detergent market between Procter and Gamble selling Tide and EraPlus, and Lever Brothers offering Wisk and Surf, indicate that each firm positions its strong brand as a Stackelberg leader, with the rival's minor brand being the follower.