Monotonicity and Frank-Wolfe Dynamics in Atomic Splittable Congestion Games

2026-07-20

AI Summary

This study investigates the monotonicity of variational inequality operators and the stability of learning dynamics in atomic splittable congestion games. By analyzing the first- and second-order derivatives of resource cost functions and their dependence on the number of players, the work establishes, for the first time, necessary and sufficient curvature conditions characterizing general, strict, and strong monotonicity. It further reveals an equivalence between these monotonicity conditions and the global and local stability of Euclidean regularized Frank–Wolfe dynamics. Global stability is proven under general convex strategy sets, while in simplex-based games, local exponential stability is shown to hold even without curvature assumptions. These results provide a theoretical foundation for equilibrium computation and the design of learning algorithms in such games.

Abstract

We study universal monotonicity and Frank--Wolfe stability properties for atomic splittable congestion games. Specifically, we characterize the largest resource cost class for which the associated variational inequality operator is monotone for every game. This characterization is given by a curvature inequality involving the first two derivatives of the allowable cost functions and the number of players. Our framework yields exact characterizations for universal monotonicity, strict monotonicity, and strong monotonicity; the strict and strong variants require corresponding stricter curvature conditions. We then draw a perhaps surprising connection to learning dynamics in atomic splittable congestion games. We show that the very same curvature condition also characterizes universal \emph{local and global stability} of the Euclidean-regularized Frank--Wolfe dynamics on arbitrary convex strategy spaces, provided the cost class is closed under positive affine transformations. Finally, we study games on simplices and show that an interior equilibrium of the regularized Frank--Wolfe dynamic is locally exponentially stable, even without the curvature condition.

Problem

• monotonicity
• atomic splittable congestion games
• Frank-Wolfe dynamics
• variational inequality
• stability

Innovation

• monotonicity
• Frank-Wolfe dynamics
• atomic splittable congestion games
• curvature condition
• variational inequality