{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,18]],"date-time":"2025-11-18T12:17:19Z","timestamp":1763468239211,"version":"3.41.0"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]],"date-time":"2015-03-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1426118400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"funder":[{"name":"NSF","award":["IIS-0904325"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["IIS-0904325"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100006754","name":"U.S. Army Research Laboratory","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["W911NF-09-2-0053"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["W911NF-09-2-0053"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100006754","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["ACM Trans. Internet Technol."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Credit networks are an abstraction for modeling trust among agents in a network. Agents who do not directly trust each other can transact through exchange of IOUs (obligations) along a chain of trust in the network. Credit networks are robust to intrusion, can enable transactions between strangers in exchange economies, and have the liquidity to support a high rate of transactions. We study the formation of such networks when agents strategically decide how much credit to extend each other. We find strong positive network formation results for the simplest theoretical model. When each agent trusts a fixed set of other agents and transacts directly only with those it trusts, all pure-strategy Nash equilibria are social optima. However, when we allow transactions over longer paths, the price of anarchy may be unbounded. On the positive side, when agents have a shared belief about the trustworthiness of each agent, simple greedy dynamics quickly converge to a star-shaped network, which is a social optimum. Similar star-like structures are found in equilibria of heuristic strategies found via simulation studies. In addition, we simulate environments where agents may have varying information about each others\u2019 trustworthiness based on their distance in a social network. Empirical game analysis of these scenarios suggests that star structures arise only when defaults are relatively rare, and otherwise, credit tends to be issued over short social distances conforming to the locality of information. Overall, we find that networks formed by self-interested agents achieve a high fraction of available value, as long as this potential value is large enough to enable any network to form.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/2700058","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,17]],"date-time":"2015-03-17T12:34:23Z","timestamp":1426595663000},"page":"1-41","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Strategic Formation of Credit Networks"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Pranav","family":"Dandekar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Stanford University"}]},{"given":"Ashish","family":"Goel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Stanford University"}]},{"given":"Michael P.","family":"Wellman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Michigan"}]},{"given":"Bryce","family":"Wiedenbeck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Michigan"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s00453-011-9520-7"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/1468-0262.00155"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1993574.1993576"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","volume-title":"Wellman","author":"Cassell Ben-Alexander","year":"2013","unstructured":"Ben-Alexander Cassell and Michael P . Wellman . 2013 . EGTAOnline: An experiment manager for simulation-based game studies. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS\u201913). Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 7838 , Springer , 85--100. Ben-Alexander Cassell and Michael P. Wellman. 2013. EGTAOnline: An experiment manager for simulation-based game studies. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS\u201913). Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 7838, Springer, 85--100."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1151374.1151388"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1993574.1993597"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICECT.2005.98"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/872035.872088"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/105864001300122476"},{"volume-title":"Manipulation-resistant reputation systems","author":"Friedman Eric","key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","unstructured":"Eric Friedman , Paul Resnick , and Rahul Sami . 2007. Manipulation-resistant reputation systems . In Algorithmic Game Theory, N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, and V. V. Vazirani, Eds., Cambridge University Press , 677--697. Eric Friedman, Paul Resnick, and Rahul Sami. 2007. Manipulation-resistant reputation systems. In Algorithmic Game Theory, N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, and V. V. Vazirani, Eds., Cambridge University Press, 677--697."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5555\/1781894.1781925"},{"volume-title":"Game Theory Evolving","author":"Gintis Herbert","key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","unstructured":"Herbert Gintis . 2000. Game Theory Evolving . Princeton University Press . Herbert Gintis. 2000. Game Theory Evolving. Princeton University Press."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jeth.1996.0108"},{"volume-title":"Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201909)","author":"Patrick","key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","unstructured":"Patrick R. Jordan and Michael P. Wellman. 2009. Generalization risk minimization in empirical game models . In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201909) . 553--560. Patrick R. Jordan and Michael P. Wellman. 2009. Generalization risk minimization in empirical game models. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201909). 553--560."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/qjec.2009.124.3.1307"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-25813-8_16"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5555\/1833515.1833839"},{"volume-title":"Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI\u201908)","author":"Mislove Alan","key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","unstructured":"Alan Mislove , Ansley Post , Peter Druschel , and Krishna P. Gummadi . 2008. Ostra: Leveraging trust to thwart unwanted communication . In Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI\u201908) . 15--30. http:\/\/www.usenix.org\/events\/nsdi08\/tech\/fullpapers\/mislove\/mislove.pdf. Alan Mislove, Ansley Post, Peter Druschel, and Krishna P. Gummadi. 2008. Ostra: Leveraging trust to thwart unwanted communication. In Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI\u201908). 15--30. http:\/\/www.usenix.org\/events\/nsdi08\/tech\/fullpapers\/mislove\/mislove.pdf."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/game.1996.0044"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s001820050028"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2168836.2168867"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_22_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10994-007-0715-8"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_23_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI\u201906)","author":"Wellman Michael P.","year":"2006","unstructured":"Michael P. Wellman . 2006 . Methods for empirical game-theoretic analysis (extended abstract) . In Proceedings of the 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI\u201906) . 1552--1555. Michael P. Wellman. 2006. Methods for empirical game-theoretic analysis (extended abstract). In Proceedings of the 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI\u201906). 1552--1555."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_24_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 20th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI\u201905)","author":"Wellman Michael P.","year":"2005","unstructured":"Michael P. Wellman , Daniel M. Reeves , Kevin M. Lochner , Shih-Fen Cheng , and Rahul Suri . 2005 . Approximate strategic reasoning through hierarchical reduction of large symmetric games . In Proceedings of the 20th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI\u201905) . 502--508. Michael P. Wellman, Daniel M. Reeves, Kevin M. Lochner, Shih-Fen Cheng, and Rahul Suri. 2005. Approximate strategic reasoning through hierarchical reduction of large symmetric games. 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In Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS\u201913)."},{"volume-title":"Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201912)","author":"Wiedenbeck Bryce","key":"e_1_2_1_26_1","unstructured":"Bryce Wiedenbeck and Michael P. Wellman . 2012. Scaling simulation-based game analysis through deviation-preserving reduction . In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201912) . 931--938. Bryce Wiedenbeck and Michael P. Wellman. 2012. Scaling simulation-based game analysis through deviation-preserving reduction. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS\u201912). 931--938."}],"container-title":["ACM Transactions on Internet Technology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/2700058","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/2700058","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]],"date-time":"2025-06-18T06:16:59Z","timestamp":1750227419000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/2700058"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]]},"references-count":26,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/2700058"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/2700058","relation":{},"ISSN":["1533-5399","1557-6051"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"1533-5399"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1557-6051"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2015,3,12]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2013-10-01","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2014-10-01","order":1,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2015-03-12","order":2,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}