Efficient decentralized power control via a compensation mechanism

A "mechanism" is a set of procedures and rules intended to lead selfish entities to a desirable outcome, "on their own". This work applies a relatively simple mechanism, available in the economics literature, to achieve an efficient decentralized allocation of power among data-transmitting terminals. The resulting operating point is "efficient", because terminals end up "fairly" compensating each other for the interference each one causes. The same ideas can be fruitfully applied in more general networks, and outside the engineering context.