Related papers: On the Power of Randomization in Algorithmic Mecha…
We study a fair division problem with indivisible items, namely the computation of maximin share allocations. Given a set of $n$ players, the maximin share of a single player is the best she can guarantee to herself, if she would partition…
In the restricted assignment problem, the input consists of a set of machines and a set of jobs each with a processing time and a subset of eligible machines. The goal is to find an assignment of the jobs to the machines minimizing the…
Randomized mechanisms, which map a set of bids to a probability distribution over outcomes rather than a single outcome, are an important but ill-understood area of computational mechanism design. We investigate the role of randomized…
We consider the problem of converting an arbitrary approximation algorithm for a single-parameter optimization problem into a computationally efficient truthful mechanism. We ask for reductions that are black-box, meaning that they require…
In coding and information theory, it is desirable to construct maximal codes that can be either variable length codes or error control codes of fixed length. However deciding code maximality boils down to deciding whether a given NFA is…
In combinatorics, the probabilistic method is a very powerful tool to prove the existence of combinatorial objects with interesting and useful properties. Explicit constructions of objects with such properties are often very difficult, or…
Task allocation is a crucial process in modern systems, but it is often challenged by incomplete information about the utilities of participating agents. In this paper, we propose a new profit maximization mechanism for the task allocation…
We provide the first separation in the approximation guarantee achievable by truthful and non-truthful combinatorial auctions with polynomial communication. Specifically, we prove that any truthful mechanism guaranteeing a…
Multi-item mechanisms can be very complex offering many different bundles to the buyer that could even be randomized. Such complexity is thought to be necessary as the revenue gaps between randomized and deterministic mechanisms, or…
We study the problem of automated mechanism design with partial verification, where each type can (mis)report only a restricted set of types (rather than any other type), induced by the principal's limited verification power. We prove…
State-of-the-art posted-price mechanisms for submodular bidders with $m$ items achieve approximation guarantees of $O((\log \log m)^3)$ [Assadi and Singla, 2019]. Their truthfulness, however, requires bidders to compute an NP-hard…
We consider a multi-round auction setting motivated by pay-per-click auctions for Internet advertising. In each round the auctioneer selects an advertiser and shows her ad, which is then either clicked or not. An advertiser derives value…
An important objective in scheduling literature is to minimize the sum of weighted flow times. We are given a set of jobs where each job is characterized by a release time, a processing time, and a weight. Our goal is to find a preemptive…
This paper considers prior-independent mechanism design, namely identifying a single mechanism that has near optimal performance on every prior distribution. We show that mechanisms with truthtelling equilibria, a.k.a., revelation…
This paper derives polynomial-time approximation schemes for several NP-hard stochastic optimization problems from the algorithmic mechanism design and operations research literatures. The problems we consider involve a principal or seller…
We study problems of scheduling jobs on related machines so as to minimize the makespan in the setting where machines are strategic agents. In this problem, each job $j$ has a length $l_{j}$ and each machine $i$ has a private speed $t_{i}$.…
The probabilistic serial (PS) rule is one of the most prominent randomized rules for the assignment problem. It is well-known for its superior fairness and welfare properties. However, PS is not immune to manipulative behaviour by the…
We show the existence of a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for the problem of maximizing a non-negative polynomial over mixed-integer sets in convex polytopes, when the number of variables is fixed. Moreover, using a…
In the setting where participants are asked multiple similar possibly subjective multi-choice questions (e.g. Do you like Panda Express? Y/N; do you like Chick-fil-A? Y/N), a series of peer prediction mechanisms are designed to incentivize…
We give the first polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for the stochastic load balancing problem when the job sizes follow Poisson distributions. This improves upon the 2-approximation algorithm due to Goel and Indyk (FOCS'99).…