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We initiate the study of a repeated principal-agent problem over a finite horizon $T$, where a principal sequentially interacts with $K\geq 2$ types of agents arriving in an adversarial order. At each round, the principal strategically…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-08-05 Junyan Liu , Arnab Maiti , Artin Tajdini , Kevin Jamieson , Lillian J. Ratliff

We consider a moral hazard problem with multiple principals in a continuous-time model. The agent can only work exclusively for one principal at a given time, so faces an optimal switching problem. Using a randomized formulation, we manage…

Probability · Mathematics 2022-09-14 Kaitong Hu , Zhenjie Ren , Junjian Yang

This paper studies the allocation of indivisible items to agents, when each agent's preferences are expressed by means of a directed acyclic graph. The vertices of each preference graph represent the subset of items approved of by the…

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

Models of economic decision makers often include idealized assumptions, such as rationality, perfect foresight, and access to all relevant pieces of information. These assumptions often assure the models' internal validity, but, at the same…

General Economics · Economics 2021-07-09 Patrick Reinwald , Stephan Leitner , Friederike Wall

We study the incentivized information acquisition problem, where a principal hires an agent to gather information on her behalf. Such a problem is modeled as a Stackelberg game between the principal and the agent, where the principal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-08 Siyu Chen , Jibang Wu , Yifan Wu , Zhuoran Yang

The Assignment problem is a fundamental and well-studied problem in the intersection of Social Choice, Computational Economics and Discrete Allocation. In the Assignment problem, a group of agents expresses preferences over a set of items,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-05-24 Barak Steindl , Meirav Zehavi

We study a dynamic model of Bayesian persuasion in sequential decision-making settings. An informed principal observes an external parameter of the world and advises an uninformed agent about actions to take over time. The agent takes…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-25 Jiarui Gan , Rupak Majumdar , Goran Radanovic , Adish Singla

We present a study on a repeated delegated choice problem, which is the first to consider an online learning variant of Kleinberg and Kleinberg, EC'18. In this model, a principal interacts repeatedly with an agent who possesses an exogenous…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-02-15 MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Mohammad Mahdavi , Keivan Rezaei , Suho Shin

Agents are systems that optimize an objective function in an environment. Together, the goal and the environment induce secondary objectives, incentives. Modeling the agent-environment interaction using causal influence diagrams, we can…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-01-21 Tom Everitt , Pedro A. Ortega , Elizabeth Barnes , Shane Legg

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-02-01 Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We consider the problem of creating assistants that can help agents solve new sequential decision problems, assuming the agent is not able to specify the reward function explicitly to the assistant. Instead of acting in place of the agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-01 Sebastiaan De Peuter , Samuel Kaski

We consider a principal agent project selection problem with asymmetric information. There are $N$ projects and the principal must select exactly one of them. Each project provides some profit to the principal and some payoff to the agent…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-04-15 Sumit Goel , Wade Hann-Caruthers

The main challenge of multiagent reinforcement learning is the difficulty of learning useful policies in the presence of other simultaneously learning agents whose changing behaviors jointly affect the environment's transition and reward…

This work considers a repeated principal-agent bandit game, where the principal can only interact with her environment through the agent. The principal and the agent have misaligned objectives and the choice of action is only left to the…

We study a variant of the principal-agent problem in which the principal does not directly observe the agent's effort outcome; rather, she gets a signal about the agent's action according to a variable information structure designed by a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-06 Yakov Babichenko , Inbal Talgam-Cohen , Haifeng Xu , Konstantin Zabarnyi

We consider the task of allocating indivisible items to agents, when the agents' preferences over the items are identical. The preferences are captured by means of a directed acyclic graph, with vertices representing items and an edge…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2024-02-02 Nina Chiarelli , Clément Dallard , Andreas Darmann , Stefan Lendl , Martin Milanič , Peter Muršič , Ulrich Pferschy

We introduce and study the problem of detecting whether an agent is updating their prior beliefs given new evidence in an optimal way that is Bayesian, or whether they are biased towards their own prior. In our model, biased agents form…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-31 Yiling Chen , Tao Lin , Ariel D. Procaccia , Aaditya Ramdas , Itai Shapira

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 show that in delegation problems, a principal benefits from belief misalignment vis-\`a-vis an agent when the latter can flexibly acquire costly information. The agent optimally succumbs to confirmatory learning, leading him to favor the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-07-30 Pavel Ilinov , Andrei Matveenko , Maxim Senkov , Egor Starkov