Related papers: Chasing Contests
Tournaments are frequently used incentive mechanisms to enhance performance. In this paper, we use field data and show that skill disparities among contestants asymmetrically affect the performance of contestants. Skill disparities have…
We describe here a new concept of one group chasing another, called "group chase and escape", by presenting a simple model. We will show that even a simple model can demonstrate rather rich and complex behavior. In particular, there are…
The game of bridge consists of two stages: bidding and playing. While playing is proved to be relatively easy for computer programs, bidding is very challenging. During the bidding stage, each player knowing only his/her own cards needs to…
We consider a two-player dynamic information design problem between a principal and a receiver -- a game is played between the two agents on top of a Markovian system controlled by the receiver's actions, where the principal obtains and…
This paper considers a pursuit-evasion scenario among three agents -- an evader, a pursuer, and a defender. We design cooperative guidance laws for the evader and the defender team to safeguard the evader from an attacking pursuer. Unlike…
As an epistemic activity, rational debate and discussion requires cooperation, yet involves a tension between collective and individual interests. While all participants benefit from collective outcomes like reaching consensus on true…
We study a decision-maker's problem of finding optimal monetary incentive schemes for retention when faced with agents whose participation decisions (stochastically) depend on the incentive they receive. Our focus is on policies constrained…
Recent literature highlights the advantages of implementing social rules via dynamic game forms. We characterize when truth-telling remains a dominant strategy in gradual mechanisms implementing strategy-proof social rules, where agents…
We study two-player constant-sum Bayesian games with type-independent payoffs. Under a "completeness" statistical condition, any "identifiable'" equilibrium is an ex-post equilibrium. We apply this result to a Downsian election in which…
Selective contests can impair participants' overall welfare in overcompetitive environments, such as school admissions. This paper models the situation as an optimal contest design problem with binary actions, treating effort costs as…
Teams frequently compete on multiple fronts: political parties contest districts for majority control, contractors field specialized units to win procurement contracts, and squads play match by match for titles. Although the prize accrues…
This work introduces the Query/Hit (Q/H) learning model. The setup consists of two agents. One agent, Alice, has access to a streaming source, while the other, Bob, does not have direct access to the source. Communication occurs through…
Desensitization addresses safe optimal planning under parametric uncertainties by providing sensitivity function-based risk estimates. This paper expands upon the existing work on desensitization in optimal control to address safe planning…
Two active hypothesis testing problems are formulated. In these problems, the agent can perform a fixed number of experiments and then decide on one of the hypotheses. The agent is also allowed to declare its experiments inconclusive if…
Imitation is widely observed in populations of decision-making agents. Using our recent convergence results for asynchronous imitation dynamics on networks, we consider how such networks can be efficiently driven to a desired equilibrium…
Scientists pursue collective knowledge, but they also seek personal recognition from their peers. When scientists decide whether or not to work on a big new problem, they weigh the potential rewards of a major discovery against the costs of…
Adversarial environments require agents to navigate a key strategic trade-off: acquiring information enhances situational awareness, but may simultaneously expose them to threats. To investigate this tension, we formulate a…
We study how a principal can jointly shape an agent's timing and action through information. We develop a revelation principle: with intertemporal commitment, the problem simplifies to choosing a joint distribution over stopping times and…
We build upon recent work [Kleinberg and Oren, 2014, Kleinberg et al., 2016, 2017] that considers present biased agents, who place more weight on costs they must incur now than costs they will incur in the future. They consider a graph…
In this work, we study the system of interacting non-cooperative two Q-learning agents, where one agent has the privilege of observing the other's actions. We show that this information asymmetry can lead to a stable outcome of population…