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Related papers: Incentive-Compatible Experimental Design

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We study the consequences of information asymmetries and misaligned incentives in settings with multiple independent agents. We model an interaction between a Sender, who holds vital private information but cannot act, and a Receiver, who…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Nanda Kishore Sreenivas , Kate Larson

Empirical design in reinforcement learning is no small task. Running good experiments requires attention to detail and at times significant computational resources. While compute resources available per dollar have continued to grow…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Andrew Patterson , Samuel Neumann , Martha White , Adam White

Agents are systems that optimize an objective function in an environment. Together, the goal and the environment induce secondary objectives, incentives. Modeling the agent-environment interaction using causal influence diagrams, we can…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-01-21 Tom Everitt , Pedro A. Ortega , Elizabeth Barnes , Shane Legg

How do incentive levels affect strategic behaviour? We address this with an experiment that separately identifies own- and opponent-incentive effects in two dominance-solvable games that differ in strategic complexity. Higher own incentives…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-03-30 Teresa Esteban-Casanelles , Duarte Gonçalves

Many applications of RCTs involve the presence of multiple treatment administrators -- from field experiments to online advertising -- that compete for the subjects' attention. In the face of competition, estimating a causal effect becomes…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-06-06 Ana-Andreea Stoica , Vivian Y. Nastl , Moritz Hardt

In the on-line Explore and Exploit literature, central to Machine Learning, a central planner is faced with a set of alternatives, each yielding some unknown reward. The planner's goal is to learn the optimal alternative as soon as…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-07-31 Gal Bahar , Rann Smorodinsky , Moshe Tennenholtz

We study mechanism design when a designer repeatedly uses a fixed mechanism to interact with strategic agents who learn from observing their allocations. We introduce a static framework, calibrated mechanism design, requiring mechanisms to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-02-19 Laura Doval , Alex Smolin

How should one jointly design tests and the arrangement of agencies to administer these tests (testing procedure)? To answer this question, we analyze a model where a principal must use multiple tests to screen an agent with a…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-02-19 Xiaoyun Qiu , Liren Shan

Incentive design deals with interaction between a principal and an agent where the former can shape the latter's utility through a policy commitment. It is well known that the principal faces an information rent when dealing with an agent…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Raj Kiriti Velicheti , Subhonmesh Bose , Tamer Başar

We consider the problem of incentivising desirable behaviours in multi-agent systems by way of taxation schemes. Our study employs the concurrent games model: in this model, each agent is primarily motivated to seek the satisfaction of a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-07-12 David Hyland , Julian Gutierrez , Michael Wooldridge

This paper concerns sequential hypothesis testing in competitive multi-agent systems where agents exchange potentially manipulated information. Specifically, a two-agent scenario is studied where each agent aims to correctly infer the true…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-04-04 Aneesh Raghavan , M. Umar B. Niazi , Karl H. Johansson

Reward design is a critical part of the application of reinforcement learning, the performance of which strongly depends on how well the reward signal frames the goal of the designer and how well the signal assesses progress in reaching…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-01 Yixiang Wang , Yujing Hu , Feng Wu , Yingfeng Chen

We study systems of interacting reinforced stochastic processes, where agents' decisions evolve under reinforcement, network-mediated interactions, and environmental influences. In competitive environments with irreducible networks, we…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-09-18 Michele Aleandri , Paolo Dai Pra , Ida Germana Minelli

I study the optimal design of ratings to motivate agent investment in quality when transfers are unavailable. The principal designs a rating scheme that maps the agent's quality to a (possibly stochastic) score. The agent has private…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-08-11 Peiran Xiao

Information diffusion and influence maximization are important and extensively studied problems in social networks. Various models and algorithms have been proposed in the literature in the context of the influence maximization problem. A…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-03-18 Mayur Mohite , Y. Narahari

We analyze a two-period principal-agent model in which the principal faces a budget constraint, and the agent's private costs of performing tasks across the two periods may be correlated. We examine the optimal design of the reward scheme…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-30 Eilon Solan , Avraham Tabbach , Chang Zhao

This paper studies algorithmic decision-making under human's strategic behavior, where a decision maker uses an algorithm to make decisions about human agents, and the latter with information about the algorithm may exert effort…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-16 Tian Xie , Xuwei Tan , Xueru Zhang

We analyze how firms should design wage contracts when workers collaborate in teams and effort costs depend on colleagues through a peer network. Performance-based compensation generates incentives that cascade through the organization,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-04-17 Marc Claveria-Mayol , Pau Milán , Nicolás Oviedo-Dávila

We initiate the study of online contracts, which integrate the game-theoretic considerations of economic contract theory, with the algorithmic and informational challenges of online algorithm design. Our starting point is the classic online…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Elad Lavi , Hadas Shachnai , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

We consider the classic principal-agent model of contract theory, in which a principal designs an outcome-dependent compensation scheme to incentivize an agent to take a costly and unobservable action. When all of the model…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-08-11 Paul Dütting , Tim Roughgarden , Inbal Talgam-Cohen