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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

Consider costly and time-consuming tasks that add up to the success of a project, and must be fitted into a given time-frame. This is an instance of the classic budgeted maximization (knapsack) problem, which admits an FPTAS. Now assume an…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-10 Ilan Doron-Arad , Hadas Shachnai , Gilad Shmerler , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

We study optimal contract design for large populations of heterogeneous agents whose actions generate network spillovers represented by an interaction function. In a linear-quadratic framework, we solve the finite-agent problem and its…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-19 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Erhan Bayraktar , Ibrahim Ekren

We consider the problem of learning from revealed preferences in an online setting. In our framework, each period a consumer buys an optimal bundle of goods from a merchant according to her (linear) utility function and current prices,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2014-12-02 Kareem Amin , Rachel Cummings , Lili Dworkin , Michael Kearns , Aaron Roth

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

We study the fundamental problem of designing contracts in principal-agent problems under uncertainty. Previous works mostly addressed Bayesian settings in which principal's uncertainty is modeled as a probability distribution over agent's…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-02-22 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi

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

The theory of discrete-time online learning has been successfully applied in many problems that involve sequential decision-making under uncertainty. However, in many applications including contractual hiring in online freelancing platforms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-27 Semih Cayci , Swati Gupta , Atilla Eryilmaz

We study the role of regulatory inspections in a contract design problem in which a principal interacts separately with multiple agents. Each agent's hidden action includes a dimension that determines whether they undertake an extra costly…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-11-07 Alireza Fallah , Michael I. Jordan

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

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-09-26 Zhan Gao , Amanda Prorok

We study a Bayesian contract design problem in which a principal interacts with an unknown agent. We consider the single-parameter uncertainty model introduced by Alon et al. [2021], in which the agent's type is described by a single…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-21 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni , Andrea Celli

Most microeconomic models of interest involve optimizing a piecewise linear function. These include contract design in hidden-action principal-agent problems, selling an item in posted-price auctions, and bidding in first-price auctions.…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-03-04 Francesco Bacchiocchi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

Maximizing long-term rewards is the primary goal in sequential decision-making problems. The majority of existing methods assume that side information is freely available, enabling the learning agent to observe all features' states before…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-19 Saeed Ghoorchian , Evgenii Kortukov , Setareh Maghsudi

In this paper, we study the problem of learning to bid in repeated first-price auctions with budget constraints. In each period, the decision maker needs to submit a bid to win the auction and maximize the total collected reward, subject to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Zeng Fu , Jiashuo Jiang , Yuan Zhou

We study the optimal contract problem in the \emph{combinatorial actions} framework of D\"utting et al.~[FOCS'21], where a principal delegates a project to an agent who chooses a subset of hidden, costly actions, and the resulting reward is…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Michal Feldman , Liat Yashin

We consider a principal-agent problem where the agent may privately choose to acquire relevant information prior to taking a hidden action. This model generalizes two special cases: a classic moral hazard setting, and a more recently…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-06-13 Maneesha Papireddygari , Bo Waggoner

First-order optimization methods have attracted a lot of attention due to their practical success in many applications, including in machine learning. Obtaining convergence guarantees and worst-case performance certificates for first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-04 Baptiste Goujaud , Aymeric Dieuleveut , Adrien Taylor

We study the problem of online resource allocation, where multiple customers arrive sequentially and the seller must irrevocably allocate resources to each incoming customer while also facing a procurement cost for the total allocation.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-24 Mitas Ray , Omid Sadeghi , Lillian J. Ratliff , Maryam Fazel

This paper addresses two classes of different, yet interrelated optimization problems. The first class of problems involves a robot that must locate a hidden target in an environment that consists of a set of concurrent rays. The second…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-04-28 Spyros Angelopoulos

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Shiliang Zuo