A Taxonomy of Incentive Patterns

Abstract

Peer-to-peer systems, multi-agent systems, and ad hoc networks aim at exploiting synergies that result from cooperation. Yet, these systems are composed of autonomous entities that are free to decide whether to cooperate or not. Hence, incentives are indispensable to induce cooperation between autonomous entities. In this paper, we introduce incentive patterns as a means of systematically conceiving incentive schemes with respect to the specifics of the application environment. Based on economics, we derive several incentive patterns and discuss them with respect to a set of general characteristics. Consequently, we propose a taxonomy that classifies the derived incentive patterns.