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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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Tomer Galanti , Aarya Bookseller , Korok Ray

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Ali Khodabakhsh , Emmanouil Pountourakis , Samuel Taggart

We study a general online combinatorial auction problem in algorithmic mechanism design. A provider allocates multiple types of capacity-limited resources to customers that arrive in a sequential and arbitrary manner. Each customer has a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Xiaoqi Tan , Alberto Leon-Garcia , Yuan Wu , Danny H. K. Tsang

Recently, Frazier et al. proposed a natural model for crowdsourced exploration of different a priori unknown options: a principal is interested in the long-term welfare of a population of agents who arrive one by one in a multi-armed bandit…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-12-29 Li Han , David Kempe , Ruixin Qiang

This paper studies one emerging procurement auction scenario where the market is constructed over the social networks. In a social network composed of many agents, smartphones or computers, one requester releases her requirement for goods…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-09-01 Yuhang Guo , Dong Hao , Bin Li

Large electricity customers (e.g., large data centers) can exhibit huge and variable electricity demands, which poses significant challenges for the electricity suppliers to plan for sufficient capacity. Thus, it is desirable to design…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-09-15 Pan Lai , Lingjie Duan , Xiaojun Lin

In many scenarios, a principal dynamically interacts with an agent and offers a sequence of incentives to align the agent's behavior with a desired objective. This paper focuses on the problem of synthesizing an incentive sequence that,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-20 Yagiz Savas , Vijay Gupta , Ufuk Topcu

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-27 Paul Duetting , Michal Feldman , Yarden Rashti

We study a ubiquitous learning challenge in online principal-agent problems during which the principal learns the agent's private information from the agent's revealed preferences in historical interactions. This paradigm includes important…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-01-01 Minbiao Han , Michael Albert , Haifeng Xu

We study a moral hazard problem with adverse selection: a risk-neutral agent can directly control the output distribution and possess private information about the production environment. The principal designs a menu of contracts satisfying…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-01-08 Siwen Liu

In multi-agent reinforcement learning systems, the actions of one agent can have a negative impact on the rewards of other agents. One way to combat this problem is to let agents trade their rewards amongst each other. Motivated by this,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-07-25 Michael Kölle , Lennart Rietdorf , Kyrill Schmid

We consider the problem of designing truthful auctions, when the bidders' valuations have a public and a private component. In particular, we consider combinatorial auctions where the valuation of an agent $i$ for a set $S$ of items can be…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-05-19 Gagan Goel , Chinmay Karande , Lei Wang

A principal who values an object allocates it to one or more agents. Agents learn private information (signals) from an information designer about the allocation payoff to the principal. Monetary transfer is not available but the principal…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-10-31 Yi-Chun Chen , Gaoji Hu , Xiangqian Yang

Adding a capacity constraint to a hidden-action principal-agent problem results in the same set of Pareto optimal contracts as the unconstrained problem where output is scaled down by a constant factor. This scaling factor is increasing in…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-12-03 Aubrey Clark

We study \emph{combinatorial procurement auctions}, where a buyer with a valuation function $v$ and budget $B$ wishes to buy a set of items. Each item $i$ has a cost $c_i$ and the buyer is interested in a set $S$ that maximizes $v(S)$…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Ashwinkumar Badanidiyuru , Shahar Dobzinski , Sigal Oren

Combinatorial Auctions are a central problem in Algorithmic Mechanism Design: pricing and allocating goods to buyers with complex preferences in order to maximize some desired objective (e.g., social welfare, revenue, or profit). The…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Avrim Blum , Anupam Gupta , Yishay Mansour , Ankit Sharma

We study a novel class of mechanism design problems in which the outcomes are constrained by the payments. This basic class of mechanism design problems captures many common economic situations, and yet it has not been studied, to our…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-12-02 Yaron Singer

To successfully complete a complex project, be it a construction of an airport or of a backbone IT system, agents (companies or individuals) must form a team having required competences and resources. A team can be formed either by the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-09-16 Piotr Skowron , Krzysztof Rzadca , Anwitaman Datta

Discovering a solution in a combinatorial space is prevalent in many real-world problems but it is also challenging due to diverse complex constraints and the vast number of possible combinations. To address such a problem, we introduce a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-01 Hyunsoo Chung , Jungtaek Kim , Boris Knyazev , Jinhwi Lee , Graham W. Taylor , Jaesik Park , Minsu Cho

Traditional combinatorial spectrum auctions mainly rely on fixed bidding and matching processes, which limit participants' ability to adapt their strategies and often result in suboptimal social welfare in dynamic spectrum sharing…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-07-29 Xiang Shao , Wei Wang , Guan Gui