# Exogenous Rewards for Promoting Cooperation in Scale-Free Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04964 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04964/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 May 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Social Diversity Reduces the Complexity and Cost of Fostering Fairness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10517/) (2022)
- [Understanding Emergent Behaviours in Multi-Agent Systems with Evolutionary Game Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07369/) (2022)
- [Social welfare optimisation in well-mixed and structured populations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07453/) (2025)
- [Social welfare optimisation under institutional reward and punishment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.31330/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The design of mechanisms that encourage pro-social behaviours in populations of self-regarding agents is recognised as a major theoretical challenge within several areas of social, life and engineering sciences. When interference from external parties is considered, several heuristics have been identified as capable of engineering a desired collective behaviour at a minimal cost. However, these studies neglect the diverse nature of contexts and social structures that characterise real-world populations. Here we analyse the impact of diversity by means of scale-free interaction networks with high and low levels of clustering, and test various interference mechanisms using simulations of agents facing a cooperative dilemma. Our results show that interference on scale-free networks is not trivial and that distinct levels of clustering react differently to each interference mechanism. As such, we argue that no tailored response fits all scale-free networks and present which mechanisms are more efficient at fostering cooperation in both types of networks. Finally, we discuss the pitfalls of considering reckless interference mechanisms.