Gridlet Economics: Resource Management Models and Policies for Cycle-Sharing Systems

In cycle-sharing peer-to-peer systems, the users contribute to a pool of resources which they can all use. The access to the resources can be made by many users simultaneously, so there is the need to define which resource each one will use. In this paper we propose an economic model for the management of resources in those systems, matching jobs to resources according to a flexible set of requirements. In order to use the resources of the system the user makes a transaction where he exchanges credits for the right to use them, those credits can only be received by previously contributing to the system. Thus the model encourages or forces the users to contribute, which is essential in a peer-to-peer system. To reduce the risk of the transactions a reputation system is used that penalizes misbehaving users.