For the increasing-supply resource-price dynamics, assume a finite network, positive weights , nonempty routes, nonnegative prices, and initially positive prices on every used resource. Resource announces price , and a route sees total price . Maximizing over gives : this is the route's weighted proportional fairness demand. The supply increases with its price, and the multiplicative resource-price dynamics raise a positive price when total demand exceeds supply and lower it otherwise.
The boundary equilibria of multiplicative resource prices show why the positivity qualification is necessary. With two resources, one route using both, , and , the prices and are distinct equilibria with well-defined route price one. The positive equilibrium is . A zero coordinate stays zero because it multiplies its own derivative. Thus the printed claim about all trajectories is false if these boundary initial conditions are admitted. We now prove the intended convergence for positive initial prices; unused resources may start at zero.
For positive-price convergence for increasing resource supplies, define . Strict increase of makes strictly convex, even without differentiability of . On the convex domain with every , the supplied function is strictly concave, since each logarithmic term is concave and the negative integral terms give strictness in every changed coordinate. Its gradient is
It is also coercive toward large prices: for fixed , when , while the positive logarithmic terms grow only logarithmically in the largest coordinate. If any route price tends to zero with the other prices bounded, . Consequently every nonempty superlevel set is compact and bounded away from zero route prices. attains a unique maximum .
For a used resource, the derivative at a zero coordinate is , since . Such a coordinate cannot vanish at the maximum. An unused resource has its unique maximizing coordinate at zero. Thus is positive on used resources and satisfies demand equal to supply there. It is the unique equilibrium in that positive domain.
Along any trajectory,
The initial superlevel set traps the trajectory and supplies a global upper bound on every price, and a lower bound on every route price. On any finite time interval is bounded, so stays positive if initially positive. The bounded trajectory therefore exists for all positive times.
More strongly, each used resource has a uniform positive demand bound
Choose with . While , its derivative is positive, so . Unused prices satisfy and converge to zero.
The nonnegative function has finite integral, since is increasing and bounded above. It is uniformly continuous along the trajectory: on the compact trapped set, the vector field is bounded, the trajectory is Lipschitz, and is a continuous, hence uniformly continuous function of . The criterion uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity applies here: otherwise separated intervals around positive peaks would give an infinite integral. Therefore . Since used prices stay bounded away from zero, on every used resource. Every limit point is thus the unique maximizer , with zero prices on unused resources. Compactness now implies . Only continuity and strict increase of the supply functions were used; differentiability or an unbounded supply was not required. The boundary counterexample remains a necessary qualification of the literal source assertion.
For finite nonempty routes and positive weights, the potential of increasing-supply resource-price dynamics has a unique maximum. Increasing supplies give a linear penalty at large prices, so its superlevel sets are compact, and logarithmic route terms exclude zero route totals. Used resources have uniformly positive demand on a trapped set; a sufficiently small positive price therefore increases, giving a positive lower bound. The potential derivative is . It has finite integral and is uniformly continuous, so it tends to zero by uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity. Every limit point then satisfies the unique stationary equations. Unused resource prices decay to zero. Only continuity and strict increase of the supply functions are needed.