Combinatorial Optimization and Games

Dear Colleagues,

Most socio-economic and communication systems in the Digital Age are organized as complex networked structures (e.g., peer-to-peer systems, online markets, social networks), of which basic constituents are rational agents making selfish decisions. Although the natural framework to study such systems is a game-theoretic one, the complexity of these multi-player games is spectacularly higher than that usually considered in classical economics, and new theoretical and algorithmic methods are awaited. Techniques from the area of combinatorial optimization and statistical physics of disordered systems have proved useful to characterize equilibrium properties of these large-scale games, but many aspects are still poorly understood. This Special Issue is expected to provide a step forward in the research on these topics, in particular on the role of externalities and network correlations, the study of dynamical equilibrium selection and learning processes, the effect of incentives allocation and mechanism design. 

The Special Issue will be an opportunity to put together researchers from different scientific areas, from microeconomics to statistical physics and computer science, working on game theoretic problems arising in multi-player games. Both short reviews and original papers are welcome. Keywords below are merely indicative.

Dr. Luca Dall'Asta
Dr. Paolo Pin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Games is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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