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We consider a dynamic moral hazard problem between a principal and an agent, where the sole instrument the principal has to incentivize the agent is the disclosure of information. The principal aims at maximizing the (discounted) number of…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-03-09 Wei Zhao , Claudio Mezzetti , Ludovic Renou , Tristan Tomala

We consider a multi-agent delegation mechanism without money. In our model, given a set of agents, each agent has a fixed number of solutions which is exogenous to the mechanism, and privately sends a signal, e.g., a subset of solutions, to…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-23 MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Keivan Rezaei , Suho Shin

Contract theory typically assumes full commitment by the principal, but many contracts fix some payoff-relevant decisions while leaving others discretionary. We ask when imperfect commitment is equivalent to full commitment. For contracts…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-27 Seungjin Han , Siyang Xiong

The Bayesian persuasion paradigm of strategic communication models interaction between a privately-informed agent, called the sender, and an ignorant but rational agent, called the receiver. The goal is typically to design a (near-)optimal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-06-21 Ronen Gradwohl , Niklas Hahn , Martin Hoefer , Rann Smorodinsky

We consider the mechanism design problem of a principal allocating a single good to one of several agents without monetary transfers. Each agent desires the good and uses it to create value for the principal. We designate this value as the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-06-26 Halil İbrahim Bayrak , Çağıl Koçyiğit , Daniel Kuhn , Mustafa Çelebi Pınar

We present an efficient reduction that converts any machine learning algorithm into an interactive protocol, enabling collaboration with another party (e.g., a human) to achieve consensus on predictions and improve accuracy. This approach…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-02 Natalie Collina , Surbhi Goel , Varun Gupta , Aaron Roth

We show that in delegation problems, a principal benefits from belief misalignment vis-\`a-vis an agent when the latter can flexibly acquire costly information. The agent optimally succumbs to confirmatory learning, leading him to favor the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-07-30 Pavel Ilinov , Andrei Matveenko , Maxim Senkov , Egor Starkov

A contract is an economic tool used by a principal to incentivize one or more agents to exert effort on her behalf, by defining payments based on observable performance measures. A key challenge addressed by contracts -- known in economics…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Paul Duetting , Michal Feldman , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

Fairness is desirable yet challenging to achieve within multi-agent systems, especially when agents differ in latent traits that affect their abilities. This hidden heterogeneity often leads to unequal distributions of wealth, even when…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Jakub Tłuczek , Victor Villin , Christos Dimitrakakis

We study a bilevel \emph{max-max} optimization framework for principal-agent contract design, in which a principal chooses incentives to maximize utility while anticipating the agent's best response. This problem, central to moral hazard…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Tomer Galanti , Aarya Bookseller , Korok Ray

We consider the classical mathematical economics problem of {\em Bayesian optimal mechanism design} where a principal aims to optimize expected revenue when allocating resources to self-interested agents with preferences drawn from a known…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2010-01-15 Shuchi Chawla , Jason Hartline , David Malec , Balasubramanian Sivan

We study computational questions in a game-theoretic model that, in particular, aims to capture advertising/persuasion applications such as viral marketing. Specifically, we consider a multi-agent Bayesian persuasion model where an informed…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-03-07 Yakov Babichenko , Siddharth Barman

Models of economic decision makers often include idealized assumptions, such as rationality, perfect foresight, and access to all relevant pieces of information. These assumptions often assure the models' internal validity, but, at the same…

General Economics · Economics 2021-07-09 Patrick Reinwald , Stephan Leitner , Friederike Wall

We introduce and study the persuasive calibration problem, where a principal aims to provide trustworthy predictions about underlying events to a downstream agent to make desired decisions. We adopt the standard calibration framework that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-07 Yiding Feng , Wei Tang

This work considers a repeated principal-agent bandit game, where the principal can only interact with her environment through the agent. The principal and the agent have misaligned objectives and the choice of action is only left to the…

How to optimally persuade an agent who has a private type? When elicitation is feasible, this amounts to a fairly standard principal-agent-style mechanism design problem, where the persuader employs a mechanism to first elicit the agent's…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-11-01 Jiarui Gan , Abheek Ghosh , Nicholas Teh

We study a setting in which a principal selects an agent to execute a collection of tasks according to a specified priority sequence. Agents, however, have their own individual priority sequences according to which they wish to execute the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Donya G. Dobakhshari , Lav R. Varshney , Vijay Gupta

We study a natural combinatorial single-principal multi-agent contract design problem, in which a principal motivates a team of agents to exert effort toward a given task. At the heart of our model is a reward function, which maps the agent…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Paul Duetting , Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Thomas Kesselheim

In this paper, we study axiomatic foundations of Bayesian persuasion, where a principal (i.e., sender) delegates the task of choice making after informing a biased agent (i.e., receiver) about the payoff relevant uncertain state (see, e.g.,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-12-30 Youichiro Higashi , Kemal Ozbek , Norio Takeoka

This paper studies contracting in the presence of externalities with a non-contractible outsider. Multiple equilibria arise from strategic symmetry between the insider agent and the outsider. To address strategic uncertainty, the principal…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-09-09 Hongcheng Li