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Related papers: Welfare and Beyond in Multi-Agent Contracts

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Overcoming the impact of selfish behavior of rational players in multiagent systems is a fundamental problem in game theory. Without any intervention from a central agent, strategic users take actions in order to maximize their personal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-06 Maria-Florina Balcan , Matteo Pozzi , Dravyansh Sharma

We are interested in mechanisms that maximize social welfare. In [1] this problem was studied for multi-unit auctions with unit demand bidders and for the public project problem, and in each case social welfare undominated mechanisms in the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2008-10-20 Krzysztof R. Apt , Vangelis Markakis

We study a robust contract design problem with deferred inspection, in which a principal allocates a scarce resource to an agent, observes the agent's realized outcome ex post at negligible cost, and conditions transfers on this information…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-01-12 Halil I. Bayrak , Martin Bichler

We study the power and limitations of posted prices in multi-unit markets, where agents arrive sequentially in an arbitrary order. We prove upper and lower bounds on the largest fraction of the optimal social welfare that can be guaranteed…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-02-18 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Tim Roughgarden , Warut Suksompong

The problem of allocating indivisible resources to agents arises in a wide range of domains, including treatment distribution and social support programs. An important goal in algorithm design for this problem is fairness, where the focus…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Niclas Boehmer , Luca Kreisel

In a typical decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), people organize themselves into a group that is programmatically managed. DAOs can act as bidders in auctions, with a DAO's bid treated by the auctioneer as if it had been submitted…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-06-30 Maryam Bahrani , Pranav Garimidi , Tim Roughgarden

Algorithmic contract design studies scenarios where a principal incentivizes an agent to exert effort on her behalf. In this work, we focus on settings where the agent's type is drawn from an unknown distribution, and formalize an offline…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-01-27 Paul Duetting , Michal Feldman , Tomasz Ponitka , Ermis Soumalias

This paper explores the economic interactions within modern crowdsourcing markets. In these markets, employers issue requests for tasks, platforms facilitate the recruitment of crowd workers, and workers complete tasks for monetary rewards.…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Tian Bai , Yiding Feng , Yaohao Liu , Mengfan Ma , Mingyu Xiao

We study a continuous time contracting model in which a principal hires a risk averse agent to manage a project over a finite horizon and provides sequential payments whose timing is endogenously determined. The resulting nonzero-sum…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-12-01 Guillermo Alonso Alvarez , Ibrahim Ekren , Liwei Huang

This paper focuses on the coordination of a large population of dynamic agents with private information over multiple periods. Each agent maximizes the individual utility, while the coordinator determines the market rule to achieve group…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2015-10-05 Sen Li , Wei Zhang

We study a setting in which a principal selects an agent to execute a collection of tasks according to a specified priority sequence. Agents, however, have their own individual priority sequences according to which they wish to execute the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Donya G. Dobakhshari , Lav R. Varshney , Vijay Gupta

In many applications such as rationing medical care and supplies, university admissions, and the assignment of public housing, the decision of who receives an allocation can be justified by various normative criteria. Such settings have…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-30 Siddhartha Banerjee , Matthew Eichhorn , David Kempe

We study the problem of allocating a set of indivisible goods among a set of agents with \emph{2-value additive valuations}. In this setting, each good is valued either $1$ or $p/q$, for some fixed co-prime numbers $p,q\in \mathbb{N}$ such…

Consider the seller's problem of finding optimal prices for her $n$ (divisible) goods when faced with a set of $m$ consumers, given that she can only observe their purchased bundles at posted prices, i.e., revealed preferences. We study…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2018-10-09 Ziwei Ji , Ruta Mehta , Matus Telgarsky

A principal must allocate a set of heterogeneous tasks (or objects) among multiple agents. The principal has preferences over the allocation. Each agent has preferences over which tasks they are assigned, which are their private…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-01-29 Quitzé Valenzuela-Stookey

Fairness is desirable yet challenging to achieve within multi-agent systems, especially when agents differ in latent traits that affect their abilities. This hidden heterogeneity often leads to unequal distributions of wealth, even when…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Jakub Tłuczek , Victor Villin , Christos Dimitrakakis

Fairly dividing a set of indivisible resources to a set of agents is of utmost importance in some applications. However, after an allocation has been implemented the preferences of agents might change and envy might arise. We study the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-02-04 Niclas Boehmer , Robert Bredereck , Klaus Heeger , Dušan Knop , Junjie Luo

In human society, the conflict between self-interest and collective well-being often obstructs efforts to achieve shared welfare. Related concepts like the Tragedy of the Commons and Social Dilemmas frequently manifest in our daily lives.…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-06-17 Yue Jin , Shuangqing Wei , Giovanni Montana

We study large markets with a single seller which can produce many types of goods, and many multi-minded buyers. The seller chooses posted prices for its many items, and the buyers purchase bundles to maximize their utility. For this…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-10-14 Elliot Anshelevich , Koushik Kar , Shreyas Sekar

In budget-feasible mechanism design, a buyer wishes to procure a set of items of maximum value from self-interested players. We have a valuation function $v:2^U \to \mathbb{R}_+$, where $U$ is the set of all items, where $v(S)$ specifies…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Rian Neogi , Kanstantsin Pashkovich , Chaitanya Swamy