Related papers: Algorithmic Collusion Without Threats
In this paper we consider strategic cost sharing games with so-called arbitrary sharing based on various combinatorial optimization problems, such as vertex and set cover, facility location, and network design problems. We concentrate on…
How can we design mechanisms to promote efficient use of shared resources? Here, we answer this question in relation to the well-studied class of atomic congestion games, used to model a variety of problems, including traffic routing.…
We study the regulation of algorithmic (non-)collusion amongst sellers in dynamic imperfect price competition by auditing their data as introduced by Hartline et al. [2024]. We develop an auditing method that tests whether a seller's…
In online ad markets, a rising number of advertisers are employing bidding agencies to participate in ad auctions. These agencies are specialized in designing online algorithms and bidding on behalf of their clients. Typically, an agency…
We study interactions with uncertainty about demand sensitivity. In our solution concept (1) firms choose seemingly-optimal strategies given the level of sophistication of their data analytics, and (2) the levels of sophistication form best…
Traditionally, most consumers of electricity pay for their consumptions according to a fixed rate. With the advancement of Smart Grid technologies, large-scale implementation of variable-rate metering becomes more practical. As a result,…
The model of congestion games is widely used to analyze games related to traffic and communication. A central property of these games is that they are potential games and hence posses a pure Nash equilibrium. In reality it is often the case…
An extensive literature in economics and social science addresses contests, in which players compete to outperform each other on some measurable criterion, often referred to as a player's score, or output. Players incur costs that are an…
Advances in computational optimization allow for the organization of large combinatorial markets. We aim for allocations and competitive equilibrium prices, i.e. outcomes that are in the core. The research is motivated by the design of…
We consider repeated multi-unit auctions with uniform pricing, which are widely used in practice for allocating goods such as carbon licenses. In each round, $K$ identical units of a good are sold to a group of buyers that have valuations…
Bidding in simultaneous auctions is challenging because an agent's value for a good in one auction may depend on the uncertain outcome of other auctions: the so-called exposure problem. Given the gap in understanding of general simultaneous…
Most modern systems strive to learn from interactions with users, and many engage in exploration: making potentially suboptimal choices for the sake of acquiring new information. We initiate a study of the interplay between exploration and…
Reinforcement learning from self-play has recently reported many successes. Self-play, where the agents compete with themselves, is often used to generate training data for iterative policy improvement. In previous work, heuristic rules are…
We study whether large language models acting as autonomous bidders can tacitly collude by coordinating when to accept platform posted payouts in repeated Dutch auctions, without any communication. We present a minimal repeated auction…
We consider a game-theoretic setting in which selfish individuals compete over resources of varying quality. The motivating example is a group of animals that disperse over patches of food of different abundances. In such scenarios,…
The use of reinforcement learning algorithms in financial trading is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the autonomous nature of these algorithms can lead to unexpected outcomes that deviate from traditional game-theoretical…
We propose a stochastic first-order algorithm to learn the rationality parameters of simultaneous and non-cooperative potential games, i.e., the parameters of the agents' optimization problems. Our technique combines (i.) an active-set step…
Distributed Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problem for multi-coalition games has attracted increasing attention in recent years, but the research mainly focuses on the case without agreement demand within coalitions. This paper considers a…
We present different versions of a conjecture which would express that first price mechanisms never work very badly in a very general class of problems. The definitions include most of the problems where there is a principal (seller) who…
We introduce a new class of combinatorial markets in which agents have covering constraints over resources required and are interested in delay minimization. Our market model is applicable to several settings including scheduling, cloud…