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We introduce and study a computational version of the principal-agent problem -- a classic problem in Economics that arises when a principal desires to contract an agent to carry out some task, but has incomplete information about the agent…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-18 David Hyland , Julian Gutierrez , Michael Wooldridge

A possibly immortal agent tries to maximise its summed discounted rewards over time, where discounting is used to avoid infinite utilities and encourage the agent to value current rewards more than future ones. Some commonly used discount…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-07-15 Tor Lattimore , Marcus Hutter

We study a Bayesian persuasion problem with externalities. In this model, a principal sends signals to inform multiple agents about the state of the world. Simultaneously, due to the existence of externalities in the agents' utilities, the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-12-18 Jonathan Shaki , Jiarui Gan , Sarit Kraus

We study optimal contract design for large populations of heterogeneous agents whose actions generate network spillovers represented by an interaction function. In a linear-quadratic framework, we solve the finite-agent problem and its…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-19 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Erhan Bayraktar , Ibrahim Ekren

We propose to study electricity capacity remuneration mechanism design through a Principal-Agent approach. The Principal represents the aggregation of electricity consumers (or a representative entity), subject to the physical risk of…

General Economics · Economics 2020-09-02 Clémence Alasseur , Heythem Farhat , Marcelo Saguan

We study the Merton portfolio management problem within a complete market, non constant time discount rate and general utility framework. The non constant discount rate introduces time inconsistency which can be solved by introducing sub…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2026-02-23 Oumar Mbodji

In the classical principal-agent problem, a principal must design a contract to incentivize an agent to perform an action on behalf of the principal. We study the classical principal-agent problem in a setting where the agent can be of one…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-10-15 Guru Guruganesh , Jon Schneider , Joshua Wang

In this paper, we solve the time inconsistent portfolio selection problem by using different utility functions with a moving target as our constraint. We solve this problem by finding an equilibrium control under the given definition as our…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2014-02-28 Hanqing Jin , Yimin Yang

We study principal-agent problems in which a principal commits to an outcome-dependent payment scheme (a.k.a. contract) so as to induce an agent to take a costly, unobservable action. We relax the assumption that the principal perfectly…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-06-02 Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We study the combinatorial contract design problem, introduced and studied by Dutting et. al. (2021, 2022), in both the single and multi-agent settings. Prior work has examined the problem when the principal's utility function is submodular…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Ramiro Deo-Campo Vuong , Shaddin Dughmi , Neel Patel , Aditya Prasad

In this article we derive a strong version of the Pontryagin Maximum Principle for general nonlinear optimal control problems on time scales in finite dimension. The final time can be fixed or not, and in the case of general boundary…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-02-15 Loïc Bourdin , Emmanuel Trélat

A general time-inconsistent optimal control problem is considered for stochastic differential equations with deterministic coefficients. Under suitable conditions, a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman type equation is derived for the equilibrium value…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-04-04 Jiongmin Yong

We study a continuous time contracting model in which a principal hires a risk averse agent to manage a project over a finite horizon and provides sequential payments whose timing is endogenously determined. The resulting nonzero-sum…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-12-01 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Ibrahim Ekren , Liwei Huang

Principal-agent problems model scenarios where a principal incentivizes an agent to take costly, unobservable actions through the provision of payments. Such problems are ubiquitous in several real-world applications, ranging from…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-27 Francesco Bacchiocchi , Jiarui Gan , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We consider a general formulation of the Principal-Agent problem with a lump-sum payment on a finite horizon, providing a systematic method for solving such problems. Our approach is the following: we first find the contract that is optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-01-10 Jakša Cvitanić , Dylan Possamaï , Nizar Touzi

We study a principal-agent problem with adverse selection, where the principal does not know the agent's true cost but must design a contract to optimize a specific criterion. Unlike standard screening frameworks that allow for…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-19 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Ibrahim Ekren , Liwei Huang

In this paper we study a robust utility maximization problem in continuous time under model uncertainty. The model uncertainty is governed by a continuous semimartingale with uncertain local characteristics. Here, the differential…

Mathematical Finance · Quantitative Finance 2023-08-04 David Criens , Lars Niemann

We derive a first order optimality condition for a class of agent-based systems, as well as for their mean-field counterpart. A relevant difficulty of our analysis is that the state equation is formulated on possibly infinite-dimensional…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-03-05 Stefano Almi , Riccardo Durastanti , Francesco Solombrino

In the principal-agent problem formulated by Myerson'82, agents have private information (type) and make private decisions (action), both of which are unobservable to the principal. Myerson pointed out an elegant linear programming solution…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-02-15 Jiarui Gan , Minbiao Han , Jibang Wu , Haifeng Xu

We study the classic principal-agent model when the signal observed by the principal is chosen by the agent. We fully characterize the optimal information structure from an agent's perspective in a general moral hazard setting with limited…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2023-07-25 Majid Mahzoon , Ali Shourideh , Ariel Zetlin-Jones