Congestion network problems and related games

This paper analyzes network problems with congestion effects from a cooperative game theoretic perspective. It is shown that for network problems with convex congestion costs, the corresponding games have a non-empty core. If congestion costs are concave, then the corresponding game has not necessarily core elements, but it is derived that, contrary to the convex congestion situation, there always exist optimal tree networks. Extensions of these results to a class of relaxed network problems and associated games are derived.