Structural Results for Decentralized Stochastic Control with a Word-of-Mouth Communication

TL;DR

This paper investigates decentralized stochastic control in networks where agents communicate locally via word-of-mouth, introducing a new information state and structural results for optimal strategies.

Contribution

It introduces the prescription approach, a novel method that leads to a new information state and provides preliminary structural results for decentralized control with local communication.

Findings

Introduction of the prescription approach and its properties

Preliminary structural results for optimal control strategies

Potential for generalization to other decentralized systems

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze a network of agents that communicate through the ``word of mouth," in which, every agent communicates only with its neighbors. We introduce the prescription approach, present some of its properties and show that it leads to a new information state. We also state preliminary structural results for optimal control strategies in systems that evolve using word-of-mouth communication. The proposed approach can be generalized to analyze several decentralized systems.