Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Discussion Papers on Economics,
University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

No 7/2020: Stable source connection and assignment problems as multi-period shortest path problems

Leanne Streekstra () and Christian Trudeau ()
Additional contact information
Leanne Streekstra: Department of Business and Economics, Postal: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark
Christian Trudeau: Department of Economics, Postal: University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: We extend the familiar shortest path problem by supposing that agents have demands over multiple periods. This potentially allows agents to combine their paths if their demands are complementary; for instance if one agent only needs a connection to the source in the summer while the other requires it only in the winter. We show that the resulting cost sharing problem always has a non-empty core, regardless of the number of agents and periods, the cost structure or the demand profile. We then exploit the fact that the model encompasses many well-studied problems to obtain or reobtain non-vacuity results for the cores of source-connection problems, (m-sided) assignment problems and minimum coloring problems.

Keywords: Shortest path; demand over multiple periods; cooperative game; core; source-connection; assignment

JEL-codes: C71; D63

26 pages, August 19, 2020

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