The evolutionary public goods game on scale-free networks with heterogeneous investment

The public goods game (PGG) is generally considered as a suitable paradigm to explain ubiquitous cooperative behavior. In this study, we investigated the evolutionary PGG on scale-free networks and studied the effect of individual heterogeneity by setting the cooperator x an investment value correlated to its degree as Ix=N⋅kxβ/∑jkjβ, where kx is the degree of x, j runs over all players and β is a tunable parameter. It is shown that the cooperation level is remarkably promoted by negative values of β whereas it is highly depressed by positive values of β. Moreover, the effect of environmental noise has also been investigated. Our result may sharpen the understanding of cooperation induced by the individual diversity.