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Related papers: Contract theory in a VUCA world

200 papers

We formulate a path-dependent stochastic optimal control problem under general conditions, for which weprove rigorously the dynamic programming principle and that the value function is the unique Crandall-Lions viscosity solution of the…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-08-04 Andrea Cosso , Fausto Gozzi , Mauro Rosestolato , Francesco Russo

In classic principal-agent problems such as Stackelberg games, contract design, and Bayesian persuasion, the agent best responds to the principal's committed strategy. We study repeated generalized principal-agent problems under the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-22 Tao Lin , Yiling Chen

We study a robust contract design problem with deferred inspection, in which a principal allocates a scarce resource to an agent, observes the agent's realized outcome ex post at negligible cost, and conditions transfers on this information…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-01-12 Halil I. Bayrak , Martin Bichler

We consider the problem of estimating the possibly non-convex cost of an agent by observing its interactions with a nonlinear, non-stationary and stochastic environment. For this inverse problem, we give a result that allows to estimate the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-24 Émiland Garrabé , Hozefa Jesawada , Carmen Del Vecchio , Giovanni Russo

We study a multi-agent contracting problem where agents exert costly effort to achieve individually observable binary outcomes. While the principal can theoretically extract the full social welfare using a discriminatory contract that…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Johannes Brustle , Paul Duetting , Stefano Leonardi , Tomasz Ponitka , Matteo Russo

This paper deals with a stochastic recursive optimal control problem, where the diffusion coefficient depends on the control variable and the control domain is not necessarily convex. We focus on the connection between the general maximum…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-12-21 Tianyang Nie , Jingtao Shi , Zhen Wu

The problem of order execution is cast as a relative entropy-regularized robust optimal control problem in this article. The order execution agent's goal is to maximize an objective functional associated with his profit-and-loss of trading…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-11 Meng Wang , Tai-Ho Wang

We study an optimal investment/consumption problem in a model capturing market and credit risk dependencies. Stochastic factors drive both the default intensity and the volatility of the stocks in the portfolio. We use the martingale…

Mathematical Finance · Quantitative Finance 2018-06-20 Lijun Bo , Agostino Capponi

We investigate Kantian equilibria in finite normal form games, a class of non-Nashian, morally motivated courses of action that was recently proposed in the economics literature. We highlight a number of problems with such equilibria,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-04-22 Gabriel Istrate

Combinatorial contracts are emerging as a key paradigm in algorithmic contract design, paralleling the role of combinatorial auctions in algorithmic mechanism design. In this paper we study natural combinatorial contract settings involving…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-05-15 Paul Duetting , Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Thomas Kesselheim

In this article, a notion of viscosity solutions is introduced for second order path-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (PHJB) equations associated with optimal control problems for path-dependent stochastic differential equations. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-12-26 Jianjun Zhou

This paper examines mean field linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) social optimum control with volatility-uncertain common noise. The diffusion terms in the dynamics of agents contain an unknown volatility process driven by a common noise. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-16 Jianhui Huang , Bing-Chang Wang , Jiongmin Yong

We consider a class of stochastic control problems where the state process is a probability measure-valued process satisfying an additional martingale condition on its dynamics, called measure-valued martingales (MVMs). We establish the…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-08-29 Alexander M. G. Cox , Sigrid Källblad , Martin Larsson , Sara Svaluto-Ferro

We study an exit contract design problem, where one provides a universal exit contract to multiple heterogeneous agents, with which each agent chooses an optimal (exit) stopping time. The problem consists in optimizing the universal exit…

Probability · Mathematics 2024-07-02 Xihao He , Xiaolu Tan , Jun Zou

We study a model of moral hazard with heterogeneous beliefs where each of agent's actions gives rise to a pair of probability distributions over output levels, one representing the beliefs of the agent and the other those of the principal.…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-10-12 Martin Dumav , Urmee Khan , Luca Rigotti

We present a first approximation of agent behaviour in a generalized model in contract theory. This model relaxes some of the the assumptions of one of the classical models allowing to include a broader range of agents. We introduce the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-07-15 Francisco Gutiérrez , Camilo Argoty , Stefany Moreno

In this paper, we study the relationship between general maximum principle and dynamic programming principle for risk-sensitive stochastic optimal control problems, where the control domain is not necessarily convex. The original problem is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Huanqing Dong , Jingtao Shi

This work provides analysis of a variant of the Risk-Sharing Principal-Agent problem in a single period setting with additional constant lower and upper bounds on the wage paid to the Agent. First the effect of the extra constraints on…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-12 Jessica Martin

This paper explores the capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to autonomously design incentive-compatible contracts in dual-principal-agent settings, a relatively unexplored aspect of algorithmic mechanism design. We develop a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-06-14 Qian Qi

We study a multi-agent contract design problem with moral hazard. In our model, each agent exerts costly effort towards an individual task at which it may either succeed or fail, and the principal, who wishes to encourage effort, has an…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-07-09 Sumit Goel , Wade Hann-Caruthers