Related papers: Combinatorial Contracts
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…
Substitute valuations (in some contexts called gross substitute valuations) are prominent in combinatorial auction theory. An algorithm is given in this paper for generating a substitute valuation through Monte Carlo simulation. In…
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…
In robust combinatorial optimization, we would like to find a solution that performs well under all realizations of an uncertainty set of possible parameter values. How we model this uncertainty set has a decisive influence on the…
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…
This paper studies delegation in a model of discrete choice. In the delegation problem, an uninformed principal must consult an informed agent to make a decision. Both the agent and principal have preferences over the decided-upon action…
We study a two-period moral hazard problem; there are two agents, with action sets that are unknown to the principal. The principal contracts with each agent sequentially, and seeks to maximize the worst-case discounted sum of payoffs,…
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…
Complex scheduling problems require a large amount computation power and innovative solution methods. The objective of this paper is the conception and implementation of a multi-agent system that is applicable in various problem domains.…
Consider a principal who wants to search through a space of stochastic solutions for one maximizing their utility. If the principal cannot conduct this search on their own, they may instead delegate this problem to an agent with distinct…
In this paper, we consider a problem of contract theory in which several Principals hire a common Agent and we study the model in the continuous time setting. We show that optimal contracts should satisfy some equilibrium conditions and we…
Principal-agent problems arise when one party acts on behalf of another, leading to conflicts of interest. The economic literature has extensively studied principal-agent problems, and recent work has extended this to more complex scenarios…
We introduce a new class of combinatorial markets in which agents have covering constraints over resources required and are interested in delay minimization. Our market model is applicable to several settings including scheduling, cloud…
Crowdsourcing markets have emerged as a popular platform for matching available workers with tasks to complete. The payment for a particular task is typically set by the task's requester, and may be adjusted based on the quality of the…
Two general algorithms based on opportunity costs are given for approximating a revenue-maximizing set of bids an auctioneer should accept, in a combinatorial auction in which each bidder offers a price for some subset of the available…
We consider the design of experiments to evaluate treatments that are administered by self-interested agents, each seeking to achieve the highest evaluation and win the experiment. For example, in an advertising experiment, a company wishes…
We investigate the problem of a principal looking to contract an expert to provide a probability forecast for a categorical event. We assume all experts have a common public prior on the event's probability, but can form more accurate…
We study the communication complexity of dominant strategy implementations of combinatorial auctions. We start with two domains that are generally considered "easy": multi-unit auctions with decreasing marginal values and combinatorial…
We study a model of delegation in which a principal takes a multidimensional action and an agent has private information about a multidimensional state of the world. The principal can design any direct mechanism, including stochastic ones.…
Real-world contracts are often ambiguous. While recent work by D\"utting, Feldman, Peretz, and Samuelson (EC 2023, Econometrica 2024) demonstrates that ambiguous contracts can yield large gains for the principal, their optimal solutions…