A calculus for costed computations

Abstract: We develop a version of the pi-calculus, picost, where channels are interpreted as resources which have costs associated with them. Code runs under the financial responsibility of owners; they must pay to use resources, but may profit by providing them. We provide a proof methodology for processes described in picost based on bisimulations. The underlying behavioural theory is justified via a contextual characterisation. We also demonstrate its usefulness via examples.