An Improved Pseudo-Polynomial Upper Bound for the Value Problem and Optimal Strategy Synthesis in Mean Payoff Games

We prove the existence of a pseudo-polynomial O(|V ||E|W ) time algorithm for the Value Problem and Optimal Strategy Synthesis in Mean Payoff Games. This improves by a factor log(|V |W ) the best previously known pseudo-polynomial upper bound due to Brim et al. The improvement hinges on a suitable characterization of values and optimal strategies in terms of reweightings.