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Related papers: Information Design in the Principal-Agent Problem

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We study a dynamic model of Bayesian persuasion in sequential decision-making settings. An informed principal observes an external parameter of the world and advises an uninformed agent about actions to take over time. The agent takes…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-25 Jiarui Gan , Rupak Majumdar , Goran Radanovic , Adish Singla

Traditional approaches to the design of multi-agent navigation algorithms consider the environment as a fixed constraint, despite the influence of spatial constraints on agents' performance. Yet hand-designing conducive environment layouts…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-05-22 Zhan Gao , Amanda Prorok

Many real-life contractual relations differ completely from the clean, static model at the heart of principal-agent theory. Typically, they involve repeated strategic interactions of the principal and agent, taking place under uncertainty…

We study a repeated Principal Agent problem between a long lived Principal and Agent pair in a prior free setting. In our setting, the sequence of realized states of nature may be adversarially chosen, the Agent is non-myopic, and the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-11-15 Natalie Collina , Aaron Roth , Han Shao

A well-intentioned principal provides information to a rationally inattentive agent without internalizing the agent's cost of processing information. Whatever information the principal makes available, the agent may choose to ignore some.…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-03-04 Elliot Lipnowski , Laurent Mathevet , Dong Wei

We study the consequences of information asymmetries and misaligned incentives in settings with multiple independent agents. We model an interaction between a Sender, who holds vital private information but cannot act, and a Receiver, who…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Nanda Kishore Sreenivas , Kate Larson

We introduce a stochastic principal-agent model. A principal and an agent interact in a stochastic environment, each privy to observations about the state not available to the other. The principal has the power of commitment, both to elicit…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-13 Jiarui Gan , Rupak Majumdar , Debmalya Mandal , Goran Radanovic

In principal-agent models, a principal offers a contract to an agent to perform a certain task. The agent exerts a level of effort that maximizes her utility. The principal is oblivious to the agent's chosen level of effort, and conditions…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-07-14 Alon Cohen , Moran Koren , Argyrios Deligkas

The field of AI is undergoing a fundamental transition from generative models that can produce synthetic content to artificial agents that can plan and execute complex tasks with only limited human involvement. Companies that pioneered the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-02-12 Noam Kolt

Strategic learning studies how decision rules interact with agents who may strategically change their inputs/features to achieve better outcomes. In standard settings, models assume that the decision-maker's sole scope is to learn a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Valia Efthymiou , Ekaterina Fedorova , Chara Podimata

This paper studies the optimal mechanism to motivate effort in a dynamic principal-agent model without transfers. An agent is engaged in a task with uncertain future rewards and can quit at any time. The principal knows the reward and…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-01-16 Chang Liu

In the classical principal-agent hidden-action contract model, a principal delegates the execution of a costly task to an agent. In order to complete the task, the agent chooses an action from a set of actions, where each potential action…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Tomer Ezra , Stefano Leonardi , Matteo Russo

AI agents -- systems that combine foundation models with reasoning, planning, memory, and tool use -- are rapidly becoming a practical interface between natural-language intent and real-world computation. This survey synthesizes the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-01-06 Bin Xu

We study a Bayesian persuasion problem with externalities. In this model, a principal sends signals to inform multiple agents about the state of the world. Simultaneously, due to the existence of externalities in the agents' utilities, the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-12-18 Jonathan Shaki , Jiarui Gan , Sarit Kraus

Fraud can pose a challenge in many resource allocation domains, including social service delivery and credit provision. For example, agents may misreport private information in order to gain benefits or access to credit. To mitigate this, a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-29 Sanmay Das , Fang-Yi Yu , Yuang Zhang

We study strategic classification in binary decision-making settings where agents can modify their features in order to improve their classification outcomes. Importantly, our work considers the causal structure across different features,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Valia Efthymiou , Chara Podimata , Diptangshu Sen , Juba Ziani

We design a simple reinforcement learning (RL) agent that implements an optimistic version of $Q$-learning and establish through regret analysis that this agent can operate with some level of competence in any environment. While we leverage…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-13 Shi Dong , Benjamin Van Roy , Zhengyuan Zhou

User models in information retrieval rest on a foundational assumption that observed behavior reveals intent. This assumption collapses when the user is an AI agent privately configured by a human operator. For any action an agent takes, a…

We examine hypothesis testing within a principal-agent framework, where a strategic agent, holding private beliefs about the effectiveness of a product, submits data to a principal who decides on approval. The principal employs a hypothesis…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-06 Safwan Hossain , Yatong Chen , Yiling Chen

Finding features that disentangle the different causes of variation in real data is a difficult task, that has nonetheless received considerable attention in static domains like natural images. Interactive environments, in which an agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-03-23 Emmanuel Bengio , Valentin Thomas , Joelle Pineau , Doina Precup , Yoshua Bengio