Related papers: On the (In)approximability of Combinatorial Contra…
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…
The problem of computing near-optimal contracts in combinatorial settings has recently attracted significant interest in the computer science community. Previous work has provided a rich body of structural and algorithmic insights into this…
Constrained submodular set function maximization problems often appear in multi-agent decision-making problems with a discrete feasible set. A prominent example is the problem of multi-agent mobile sensor placement over a discrete domain.…
A principal selects a team of agents for collaborating on a joint project. The principal aims to design a revenue-optimal contract that incentivize the team of agents to exert costly effort while satisfying fairness constraints. We show…
We study a principal-agent team production model. The principal hires a team of agents to participate in a common production task. The exact effort of each agent is unobservable and unverifiable, but the total production outcome (e.g. the…
Assortment optimization refers to the problem of designing a slate of products to offer potential customers, such as stocking the shelves in a convenience store. The price of each product is fixed in advance, and a probabilistic choice…
Contract theory studies how a principal can incentivize agents to exert costly, unobservable effort through performance-based payments. While classical economic models provide elegant characterizations of optimal solutions, modern…
In online combinatorial allocation, agents arrive sequentially and items are allocated in an online manner. The algorithm designer only knows the distribution of each agent's valuation, while the actual realization of the valuation is…
Principal-agent problems model scenarios where a principal incentivizes an agent to take costly, unobservable actions through the provision of payments. Such problems are ubiquitous in several real-world applications, ranging from…
We study hidden-action principal-agent problems with multiple agents. These are problems in which a principal commits to an outcome-dependent payment scheme in order to incentivize some agents to take costly, unobservable actions that lead…
We study principal-agent problems in which a principal commits to an outcome-dependent payment scheme -- called contract -- in order to induce an agent to take a costly, unobservable action leading to favorable outcomes. We consider a…
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…
We consider the principal-agent problem with heterogeneous agents. Previous works assume that the principal signs independent incentive contracts with every agent to make them invest more efforts on the tasks. However, in many…
Many combinatorial optimization problems are often considered intractable to solve exactly or by approximation. An example of such problem is maximum clique which -- under standard assumptions in complexity theory -- cannot be solved in…
We study principal-agent problems in which a principal commits to an outcome-dependent payment scheme (a.k.a. contract) so as to induce an agent to take a costly, unobservable action. We relax the assumption that the principal perfectly…
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…
In the classical principal-agent problem, a principal must design a contract to incentivize an agent to perform an action on behalf of the principal. We study the classical principal-agent problem in a setting where the agent can be of one…
We study an abstract optimal auction problem for a single good or service. This problem includes environments where agents have budgets, risk preferences, or multi-dimensional preferences over several possible configurations of the good…
Constrained submodular set function maximization problems often appear in multi-agent decision-making problems with a discrete feasible set. A prominent example is the problem of multi-agent mobile sensor placement over a discrete domain.…
Budget feasible mechanism considers algorithmic mechanism design questions where there is a budget constraint on the total payment of the mechanism. An important question in the field is that under which valuation domains there exist budget…