Internal Collusion Research Articles

Privacy-preserving decentralized price coordination for EV charging stations

Price competition among electric vehicle (EV) charging stations is as fierce as the competition among gas stations. Nash equilibrium (NE) is a solution concept that can characterize a competition’s efficient and stable state. However, calculation of the equilibrium is often time-consuming and requires complete information on the charging stations. Rapidly changing charging stations often hinder reaching equilibrium. In this study, we analyze price competition with service capacity constraints and use an ordinal potential game framework to investigate the structure of the competition. By constructing the ordinal potential function, the equilibrium characterization is converted to identifying the solution through a single-objective optimization. We further propose a decentralized algorithm to enable effective price coordination to achieve equilibrium with maximized social welfare. To preserve the privacy of charging stations from internal collusion and external attacks, an advanced secure multi-party computation technology known as the Paillier Cryptosystem is customized for our proposed decentralized algorithm. Numerical studies based on field data suggest the significance of our framework.

Toward Secure Blockchain-Enabled Internet of Vehicles: Optimizing Consensus Management Using Reputation and Contract Theory

In the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), data sharing among vehicles is critical for improving driving safety and enhancing vehicular services. To ensure security and traceability of data sharing, existing studies utilize efficient delegated proof-of-stake consensus scheme as hard security solutions to establish blockchain-enabled IoV (BIoV). However, as the miners are selected from miner candidates by stake-based voting, defending against voting collusion between the candidates and compromised high-stake vehicles becomes challenging. To address the challenge, in this paper, we propose a two-stage soft security enhancement solution: 1) miner selection and 2) block verification. In the first stage, we design a reputation-based voting scheme to ensure secure miner selection. This scheme evaluates candidates’ reputation using both past interactions and recommended opinions from other vehicles. The candidates with high reputation are selected to be active miners and standby miners. In the second stage, to prevent internal collusion among active miners, a newly generated block is further verified and audited by standby miners. To incentivize the participation of the standby miners in block verification, we adopt the contract theory to model the interactions between active miners and standby miners, where block verification security and delay are taken into consideration. Numerical results based on a real-world dataset confirm the security and efficiency of our schemes for data sharing in BIoV.

Toward better data veracity in mobile cloud computing: A context-aware and incentive-based reputation mechanism

As a promising next-generation computing paradigm, Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) enables the large-scale collection and big data processing of personal private data. An important but often overlooked V of big data is data veracity, which ensures that the data used are trusted, authentic, accurate and protected from unauthorized access and modification. In order to realize the veracity of data in MCC, specific trust models and approaches must be developed. In this paper, a Category-based Context-aware and Recommendation incentive-based reputation Mechanism (CCRM) is proposed to defend against internal attacks and enhance data veracity in MCC. In the CCRM, innovative methods, including a data category and context sensing technology, a security relevance evaluation model, and a Vickrey-Clark-Groves (VCG)-based recommendation incentive scheme, are integrated into the process of reputation evaluation. Cost analysis indicates that the CCRM has a linear communication and computation complexity. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the CCRM compared to existing reputation mechanisms under internal collusion attacks and bad mouthing attacks.

Collusion and the Organization of the Firm

This paper shows that the threat of collusion between a productive agent and the auditor in charge of monitoring production can influence a number of organizational dimensions of the firm, including outsourcing decisions and the allocation of production costs. We find that the optimal organizational response to internal collusion lets the agent choose between working outside the firm with no monitoring, or working within the firm with monitoring. In equilibrium, there are no rents due to collusion and the efficient worker works outside the firm. The results are robust to a number of extensions. (JEL D21, D43, D82, D86, L12, L13)

Collusion and the Organisation of the Firm

This paper shows that the threat of collusion between a productive agent and the auditor in charge of monitoring production can influence a number of organizational dimensions of the firm, including outsourcing decisions and the allocation of production costs. We find that the optimal organizational response to internal collusion lets the agent choose between working outside the firm (no monitoring and full claims over production costs) or within the firm (monitoring but no claims over costs). In equilibrium, there are no rents due to collusion. The results are robust to a number of extensions.

The Agency Cost of Internal Collusion and Schumpeterian Growth

This paper analyzes the link between the internal organization of rms and the whole process of macroeconomic growth. We present a Schumpeterian growth model in which monopolies face dynamic agency costs due to the formation of vertical collusions between agents of the organization. These agency costs aect incentives to invest and the rate of innovation. However, when collusion is a self-enforcing implicit relationship, a higher growth rate shortens the time horizon of colluding agents and makes thus collusion more dicult to enforce. We analyze this two ways-mechanisms between the growth process and agency problems within the rm and show how the transaction costs of side-contracting within the rm and the growth rate of the economy are simultaneously derived.

The Agency Cost of Internal Collusion and Schumpeterian Growth

This paper analyses the link between the internal organization of the firm and the growth process. We present a Schumpeterian growth model in which monopoly firms face agency costs due to collusion between managers inside the organization. These costs affect incentives to invest and the rate of innovation in the economy. When collusion is self-enforcing, higher growth and more creative destruction shortens in turn the time horizon of colluding agents in the organization and makes internal collusion more difficult to sustain. We analyse this two-way mechanism between growth and agency problems and show how the transaction costs of side-contracting within the firm and the growth rate of the economy are simultaneously derived. Copyright 2004, Wiley-Blackwell.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

The Internal Organization of the Firm, Transaction Costs and Macroeconomic Growth

This paper proposes an analysis of the links between the internal organization of firms and macroeconomic growth. We present a Schumpeterian growth model in which firms face agency costs. These agency costs are due to the existence of asymmetries of information and the formation of internal vertical collusions. As a response to the opportunity of internal collusion, optimal incentive contracts depend on the efficiency of collusive side contracting within organizations. This un turn affects the firms profitability and the return to innovation and the stationary equilibrium growth rate of the economy. We then discuss the relationships between the structure of internal transaction costs, organizational technologies and macroeconomic growth.

Controlling Corruption in Hierarchies

We re-examine alternative hierarchical designs for controlling corruption as studied by Bac (J. Comp. Econom.22,2:99–118), since his formulation of the principal's problem was incomplete. In a basic hierarchy, while collusion between a supervisor and his subordinate agent may prevent implementation of high corruption outcomes, the principal would be able to induce relatively low corruption outcomes. In a two-level decentralized supervision chain, internal collusion in the upper part always induces collusion at the bottom but not vice-versa. For nonincreasing returns-to-scale monitoring technologies, the principal prefers a decentralized hierarchy to a centralized hierarchy.J. Comp. Econom.,December 1997,25(3), pp. 322–344. Department of Economics and Accounting, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, United Kingdom.