Related papers: Incentives and Coordination in Bottleneck Models
We propose a model of discrete time dynamic congestion games with atomic players and a single source-destination pair. The latencies of edges are composed by free-flow transit times and possible queuing time due to capacity constraints. We…
We consider the problem of selfish agents in discrete-time queuing systems, where competitive queues try to get their packets served. In this model, a queue gets to send a packet each step to one of the servers, which will attempt to serve…
Strategic uncertainty complicates policy design in coordination games. To rein in strategic uncertainty, the Planner in this paper connects the problem of policy design to that of equilibrium selection. We characterize the subsidy scheme…
We study techniques to incentivize self-interested agents to form socially desirable solutions in scenarios where they benefit from mutual coordination. Towards this end, we consider coordination games where agents have different intrinsic…
Correlated equilibria enable a coordinator to influence the self-interested agents by recommending actions that no player has an incentive to deviate from. However, the effectiveness of this mechanism relies on accurate knowledge of the…
We investigate the behavior of equilibria in an $M/M/1$ feedback queue where price and time sensitive customers are homogeneous with respect to service valuation and cost per unit time of waiting. Upon arrival, customers can observe the…
Incentives are more likely to elicit desired outcomes when they are designed based on accurate models of agents' strategic behavior. A growing literature, however, suggests that people do not quite behave like standard economic agents in a…
In this paper, we consider a general distributed system with multiple agents who select and then implement actions in the system. The system has an operator with a centralized objective. The agents, on the other hand, are selfinterested and…
We study the self-assembly of a complex network of collaborations among self-interested agents. The agents can maintain different levels of cooperation with different partners. Further, they continuously, selectively, and independently…
When consequential decisions are informed by algorithmic input, individuals may feel compelled to alter their behavior in order to gain a system's approval. Models of agent responsiveness, termed "strategic manipulation," analyze the…
The theoretical study of social learning typically assumes that each agent's action affects only her own payoff. In this paper, I present a model in which agents' actions directly affect the payoffs of other agents. On a discrete time line,…
How do rational agents self-organize when trying to connect to a common target? We study this question with a simple tree formation game which is related to the well-known fair single-source connection game by Anshelevich et al. (FOCS'04)…
Overcoming the impact of selfish behavior of rational players in multiagent systems is a fundamental problem in game theory. Without any intervention from a central agent, strategic users take actions in order to maximize their personal…
We consider the problem in which n items arrive to a market sequentially over time, where two agents compete to choose the best possible item. When an agent selects an item, he leaves the market and obtains a payoff given by the value of…
We consider an M/M/1 feedback queue in which service attempts may fail, requiring the customer to rejoin the queue. Arriving customers act strategically, deciding whether to join the queue based on a threshold strategy that depends on the…
We study a dynamic routing game motivated by traffic flows. The base model for an edge is the Vickrey bottleneck model. That is, edges are equipped with a free flow transit time and a capacity. When the inflow into an edge exceeds its…
Coordination mechanisms aim to mitigate the impact of selfishness when scheduling jobs to different machines. Such a mechanism defines a scheduling policy within each machine and naturally induces a game among the selfish job owners. The…
This paper studies a dynamic discrete-time queuing model where at every period players get a new job and must send all their jobs to a queue that has a limited capacity. Players have an incentive to send their jobs as late as possible;…
The collective effort exceeds the sum of its parts when individuals coordinate and regulate their activities and behaviors. This holds true even in self-organizing systems with open, voluntary participation where coordination occurs…
We study a collaborative learning problem where $m$ agents aim to estimate a vector $\mu =(\mu_1,\ldots,\mu_d)\in \mathbb{R}^d$ by sampling from associated univariate normal distributions $\{\mathcal{N}(\mu_k, \sigma^2)\}_{k\in[d]}$. Agent…