# The Effectiveness of Subsidies and Tolls in Congestion Games

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.09655 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09655/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Feb 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Human-in-the-loop Learning for Dynamic Congestion Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15599/) (2024)
- [Subsidy design for better social outcomes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.03129/) (2024)
- [To Analyze and Regulate Human-in-the-loop Learning for Congestion Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.03055/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Are rewards or penalties more effective in influencing user behavior? This work compares the effectiveness of subsidies and tolls in incentivizing user behavior in congestion games. The predominantly studied method of influencing user behavior in network routing problems is to institute taxes which alter users' observed costs in a manner that causes their self-interested choices to more closely align with a system-level objective. Another conceivable method to accomplish the same goal is to subsidize the users' actions that are preferable from a system-level perspective. We show that, when users behave similarly and predictably, subsidies offer superior performance guarantees to tolls under similar budgetary constraints; however, in the presence of unknown player heterogeneity, subsidies fail to offer the same robustness as tolls.