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How does competition in markets for information affect the creation and division of surplus? We study this question in a search environment in which an agent searches sequentially for a high-quality good and learns about the quality of…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-26 Teddy Mekonnen , Bobak Pakzad-Hurson

We investigate a novel approach to resilient distributed optimization with quadratic costs in a multi-agent system prone to unexpected events that make some agents misbehave. In contrast to commonly adopted filtering strategies, we draw…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-02-11 Luca Ballotta , Giacomo Como , Jeff S. Shamma , Luca Schenato

Building a machine learning solution in real-life applications often involves the decomposition of the problem into multiple models of various complexity. This has advantages in terms of overall performance, better interpretability of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-05-27 Bashar Awwad Shiekh Hasan , Kate Kelly

Recent work shows that pricing with symmetric LLM agents leads to algorithmic collusion. We show that collusion is fragile under the heterogeneity typical of real deployments. In a stylized repeated-pricing model, heterogeneity in patience…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Jussi Keppo , Yuze Li , Gerry Tsoukalas , Nuo Yuan

We introduce pricing formulas for competition and collusion models of two-sided markets with an outside option. For the competition model, we find conditions under which prices and consumer surplus may increase or decrease if the outside…

General Economics · Economics 2025-05-12 Cristian Chica , Yinglong Guo , Gilad Lerman

We study scenarios where multiple sellers of a homogeneous good compete on prices, where each seller can only sell to some subset of the buyers. Crucially, sellers cannot price-discriminate between buyers. We model the structure of the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-11-12 Moshe Babaioff , Brendan Lucier , Noam Nisan

In the rapidly evolving landscape of eCommerce, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based pricing algorithms, particularly those utilizing Reinforcement Learning (RL), are becoming increasingly prevalent. This rise has led to an inextricable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-06 Michael Schlechtinger , Damaris Kosack , Franz Krause , Heiko Paulheim

This paper proposes a novel approach to resilient distributed optimization with quadratic costs in a networked control system (e.g., wireless sensor network, power grid, robotic team) prone to external attacks (e.g., hacking, power outage)…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-02-11 Luca Ballotta , Giacomo Como , Jeff S. Shamma , Luca Schenato

Algorithmic pricing raises a question of interpretation as well as intervention: when autonomous deep-learning pricing systems sustain supracompetitive prices, what strategic pattern have they learned, and how might market institutions…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-19 Soumen Banerjee

Banks routinely use neural networks to make decisions. While these models offer higher accuracy, they are susceptible to adversarial attacks, a risk often overlooked in the context of event sequences, particularly sequences of financial…

This paper examines whether widely used online learning algorithms in pricing can independently reach competitive outcomes or instead foster tacit collusion. This issue has drawn considerable attention from competition regulators as…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Martin Bichler , Julius Durmann , Matthias Oberlechner

Algorithmic collusion has emerged as a central question in AI: Will the interaction between different AI agents deployed in markets lead to collusion? More generally, understanding how emergent behavior, be it a cartel or market dominance…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-10-31 Ziyi Wang , Carmine Ventre , Maria Polukarov

We study hypothesis testing over a heterogeneous population of strategic agents with private information. Any single test applied uniformly across the population yields statistical error that is sub-optimal relative to the performance of an…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Flora C. Shi , Martin J. Wainwright , Stephen Bates

We consider a simple model of rational agents competing in a single product market described by simple linear demand curve. Contrary to accepted economic theory, the agents' production levels synchronise in the absence of conscious…

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems · Physics 2008-12-02 Russell K. Standish , Steve Keen

I prove that competitive market outcomes require computational intractability. If P = NP, firms can efficiently solve the collusion detection problem, identifying deviations from cooperative agreements in complex, noisy markets and thereby…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-25 Philip Z. Maymin

Artificial intelligence algorithms are increasingly used by firms to set prices. Previous research shows that they can exhibit collusive behaviour, but how quickly they can do so has so far remained an open question. I show that a modern…

General Economics · Economics 2026-04-20 Kevin Michael Frick

In this paper, a multi-user cooperative computing framework is applied to enable mobile users to utilize available computing resources from other neighboring users via direct communication links. An incentive scheme based on Bertrand game…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-08-10 Nan Zhang , Guopeng Zhang , Kezhi Wang , Kun Yang

LLM-based multi-agent systems demonstrate great potential for tackling complex problems, but how competition shapes their behavior remains underexplored. This paper investigates the over-competition in multi-agent debate, where agents under…

With a novel search algorithm or assortment planning or assortment optimization algorithm that takes into account a Bayesian approach to information updating and two-stage assortment optimization techniques, the current research provides a…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2023-07-19 Dipankar Das

The key for effective interaction in many multiagent applications is to reason explicitly about the behaviour of other agents, in the form of a hypothesised behaviour. While there exist several methods for the construction of a behavioural…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2019-07-04 Stefano V. Albrecht , S. Ramamoorthy