English
Related papers

Related papers: Combinatorial Contracts Beyond Gross Substitutes

200 papers

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…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Karhan Akcoglu , James Aspnes , Bhaskar DasGupta , Ming-Yang Kao

Constrained maximization of submodular functions poses a central problem in combinatorial optimization. In many realistic scenarios, a number of agents need to maximize multiple submodular objectives over the same ground set. We study such…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-07-22 Georgios Amanatidis , Georgios Birmpas , Philip Lazos , Stefano Leonardi , Rebecca Reiffenhäuser

In this article we consider combinatorial markets with valuations only for singletons and pairs of buy/sell-orders for swapping two items in equal quantity. We provide an algorithm that permits polynomial time market-clearing and -pricing.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-30 Johannes C. Müller , Sebastian Pokutta , Alexander Martin , Susanne Pape , Andrea Peter , Thomas Winter

This paper derives polynomial-time approximation schemes for several NP-hard stochastic optimization problems from the algorithmic mechanism design and operations research literatures. The problems we consider involve a principal or seller…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-09-18 Robin Bowers , Marius Garbea , Emmanouil Pountourakis , Samuel Taggart

Motivated by the success of the serial dictatorship mechanism in social choice settings, we explore its usefulness in tackling various combinatorial optimization problems. We do so by considering an abstract model, in which a set of agents…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-09-09 Ioannis Caragiannis , Nidhi Rathi

We study combinatorial auctions with interdependent valuations. In such settings, each agent $i$ has a private signal $s_i$ that captures her private information, and the valuation function of every agent depends on the entire signal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-06-04 Alon Eden , Michal Feldman , Amos Fiat , Kira Goldner , Anna R. Karlin

In this paper we study a principal-agent problem in continuous time with multiple lump-sum payments (contracts) paid at different deterministic times. We reduce the non-zero sum Stackelberg game between the principal and agent to a standard…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-08 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Erhan Bayraktar , Ibrahim Ekren , Liwei Huang

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-04-17 Nikhil Devanur , Jugal Garg , Ruta Mehta , Vijay V. Vazirani , Sadra Yazdanbod

In this work, we study sequential contracts under matroid constraints. In the sequential setting, an agent can take actions one by one. After each action, the agent observes the stochastic value of the action and then decides which action…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Kanstantsin Pashkovich , Jacob Skitsko , Yun Xing

We consider the classic principal-agent model of contract theory, in which a principal designs an outcome-dependent compensation scheme to incentivize an agent to take a costly and unobservable action. When all of the model…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-08-11 Paul Dütting , Tim Roughgarden , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

Complements between goods - where one good takes on added value in the presence of another - have been a thorn in the side of algorithmic mechanism designers. On the one hand, complements are common in the standard motivating applications…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2012-05-21 Ittai Abraham , Moshe Babaioff , Shaddin Dughmi , Tim Roughgarden

A principal contracts with an agent who sequentially searches over projects to generate a prize. The principal initially knows only one of the agent's available projects and evaluates a contract by its worst-case performance. We…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-09-17 Théo Durandard , Udayan Vaidya , Boli Xu

Revealed preference techniques are used to test whether a data set is compatible with rational behaviour. They are also incorporated as constraints in mechanism design to encourage truthful behaviour in applications such as combinatorial…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-10-29 Shant Boodaghians , Adrian Vetta

Linear contracts are ubiquitous in practice, yet optimal contract theory often prescribes complex, nonlinear structures. We provide a distributional robustness justification for linear contracts. We study a principal-agent problem where the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Shiliang Zuo

A practical challenge in reinforcement learning are combinatorial action spaces that make planning computationally demanding. For example, in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning, a potentially large number of agents jointly…

In a framework close to the one developed by Holmstr\"om and Milgrom [44], we study the optimal contracting scheme between a Principal and several Agents. Each hired Agent is in charge of one project, and can make efforts towards managing…

Economics · Quantitative Finance 2016-05-27 Romuald Elie , Dylan Possamaï

Computational and economic results suggest that social welfare maximization and combinatorial auction design are much easier when bidders' valuations satisfy the "gross substitutes" condition. The goal of this paper is to evaluate…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-08-09 Tim Roughgarden , Inbal Talgam-Cohen , Jan Vondrák

In Combinatorial Public Projects, there is a set of projects that may be undertaken, and a set of self-interested players with a stake in the set of projects chosen. A public planner must choose a subset of these projects, subject to a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2011-04-19 Shaddin Dughmi

We study the power and limits of optimal dynamic pricing in combinatorial markets; i.e., dynamic pricing that leads to optimal social welfare. Previous work by Cohen-Addad et al. [EC'16] demonstrated the existence of optimal dynamic prices…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-10-16 Ben Berger , Alon Eden , Michal Feldman

We consider a single buyer with a combinatorial preference that would like to purchase related products and services from different vendors, where each vendor supplies exactly one product. We study the general case where subsets of products…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2014-01-09 Moshe Babaioff , Noam Nisan , Renato Paes Leme