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In the classical principal-agent problem, a principal must design a contract to incentivize an agent to perform an action on behalf of the principal. We study the classical principal-agent problem in a setting where the agent can be of one…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-10-15 Guru Guruganesh , Jon Schneider , Joshua Wang

We study a static game played by a finite number of agents, in which agents are assigned independent and identically distributed random types and each agent minimizes its objective function by choosing from a set of admissible actions that…

Probability · Mathematics 2017-02-08 Daniel Lacker , Kavita Ramanan

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

Multi-agent contract design has largely evaluated contracts through the lens of pure Nash equilibria (PNE). This focus, however, is not without loss: In general, the principal can strictly gain by recommending a complex, possibly…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Paul Dütting , Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Thomas Kesselheim

We study how governments promote social welfare through the design of contracting environments. We model the regulation of contracting as default delegation: the government chooses a delegation set of contract terms it is willing to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-05-17 Zoë Hitzig , Benjamin Niswonger

We study a dynamic contracting problem with multiple agents and limited commitment. A principal seeks to screen efficient agents using one-period contracts, but is tempted to revise contract terms upon knowing an agent's type. Alterations…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-03-24 Mehmet Ekmekci , Lucas Maestri , Dong Wei

We study a new class of contract design problems where a principal delegates the execution of multiple projects to a set of agents. The principal's expected reward from each project is a combinatorial function of the agents working on it.…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-09 Tal Alon , Matteo Castiglioni , Junjie Chen , Tomer Ezra , Yingkai Li , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

We study the optimal contract problem in the \emph{combinatorial actions} framework of D\"utting et al.~[FOCS'21], where a principal delegates a project to an agent who chooses a subset of hidden, costly actions, and the resulting reward is…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Michal Feldman , Liat Yashin

In the classical principal-agent hidden-action contract model, a principal delegates the execution of a costly task to an agent. In order to complete the task, the agent chooses an action from a set of actions, where each potential action…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Tomer Ezra , Stefano Leonardi , Matteo Russo

We study the problem of allocating indivisible goods among agents that have an identical subadditive valuation over the goods. The extent of fairness and efficiency of allocations is measured by the generalized means of the values that the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-05-04 Siddharth Barman , Ranjani G. Sundaram

We study the problem of fairly allocating a set of indivisible goods among agents with additive valuations. The extent of fairness of an allocation is measured by its Nash social welfare, which is the geometric mean of the valuations of the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2018-07-23 Siddharth Barman , Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy , Rohit Vaish

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

We introduce a novel model of contracts with combinatorial actions that accounts for sequential and adaptive agent behavior. As in the standard model, a principal delegates the execution of a costly project to an agent. There are $n$…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Maya Schlesinger

In this paper, we introduce a preliminary model for interactions in the data market. Recent research has shown ways in which a data aggregator can design mechanisms for users to ensure the quality of data, even in situations where the users…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-04-06 Tyler Westenbroek , Roy Dong , Lillian J. Ratliff , S. Shankar Sastry

This paper studies whether a planner who only has information about the network topology can discriminate among agents according to their network position. The planner proposes a simple menu of contracts, one for each location, in order to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2020-01-10 Francis Bloch , Shaden Shabayek

We study the efficiency of simple combinatorial auctions for the allocation of a set of items to a set of agents, with private subadditive valuation functions and budget constraints. The class we consider includes all auctions that allocate…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-07-29 Alexandros A. Voudouris

In cost sharing games, the existence and efficiency of pure Nash equilibria fundamentally depends on the method that is used to share the resources' costs. We consider a general class of resource allocation problems in which a set of…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-02-05 Max Klimm , Daniel Schmand

We propose a distributionally robust principal agent formulation, which generalizes some common variants of worst-case and Bayesian principal agent problems. We construct a theoretical framework to certify whether any surjective contract…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-01-17 Peter Zhang

Economic theory distinguishes between principal-agent settings in which the agent has a private type and settings in which the agent takes a hidden action. Many practical problems, however, involve aspects of both. For example, brand X may…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-11-24 Tal Alon , Paul Dütting , Inbal Talgam-Cohen

Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) is a powerful tool for training autonomous agents acting independently in a common environment. However, it can lead to sub-optimal behavior when individual incentives and group incentives diverge.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-01-30 Andreas A. Haupt , Phillip J. K. Christoffersen , Mehul Damani , Dylan Hadfield-Menell