Related papers: Self-Confirming Mechanisms
We consider a class of reinforcement-learning systems in which the agent follows a behavior policy to explore a discrete state-action space to find an optimal policy while adhering to some restriction on its behavior. Such restriction may…
We consider the problem of designing mechanisms that interact with strategic agents through strategic intermediaries (or mediators), and investigate the cost to society due to the mediators' strategic behavior. Selfish agents with private…
We study revenue maximization by deterministic mechanisms for the simplest case for which Myerson's characterization does not hold: a single seller selling two items, with independently distributed values, to a single additive buyer. We…
Although the specific structures of electricity markets are diverse around the world, they were all conceived on the premise of predictable, controllable generation with nonnegligible marginal costs. Recent changes, specifically, the…
This paper experimentally evaluates four mechanisms intended to achieve the Uniform outcome in rationing problems (Sprumont, 1991). Our benchmark is the dominant-strategy, direct-revelation mechanism of the Uniform rule. A strategically…
Mechanisms such as auctions and pricing schemes are utilized to design strategic (noncooperative) games for networked systems. Although the participating players are selfish, these mechanisms ensure that the game outcome is optimal with…
The buying and selling of information is taking place at a scale unprecedented in the history of commerce, thanks to the formation of online marketplaces for user data. Data providing agencies sell user information to advertisers to allow…
We introduce the use of reinforcement learning for indirect mechanisms, working with the existing class of sequential price mechanisms, which generalizes both serial dictatorship and posted price mechanisms and essentially characterizes all…
Mechanism design for fully strategic agents commonly assumes broadcast nature of communication between agents of the system. Moreover, for mechanism design, the stability of Nash equilibrium (NE) is demonstrated by showing convergence of…
We study the classic mechanism design problem of locating a public facility on a real line. In contrast to previous work, we assume that the agents are unable to fully specify where their preferred location lies, and instead only provide…
If you recommend a product to me and I buy it, how much should you be paid by the seller? And if your sole interest is to maximize the amount paid to you by the seller for a sequence of recommendations, how should you recommend optimally if…
Myerson's seminal characterization of the revenue-optimal auction for a single item \cite{myerson1981optimal} remains a cornerstone of mechanism design. However, generalizing this framework to multi-item settings has proven exceptionally…
We consider the classical mathematical economics problem of {\em Bayesian optimal mechanism design} where a principal aims to optimize expected revenue when allocating resources to self-interested agents with preferences drawn from a known…
Many smart grid frameworks, such as demand response programs, require accurate information about consumers' parameters (e.g., flexibility) at the aggregator side to optimize grid operations. Existing works typically rely on perfect…
We show that the mechanism-design problem for a monopolist selling multiple, heterogeneous objects to a buyer with ex ante symmetric and additive values is equivalent to the mechanism-design problem for a monopolist selling identical…
Financial models do not merely analyse markets, but actively shape them. This effect, known as performativity, describes how financial theories and the subsequent actions based on them influence market processes, by creating self-fulfilling…
LLMs are increasingly used to make or support high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, where alignment depends not only on factual accuracy but on how models weigh tradeoffs between different outcomes. We present an empirical pipeline for…
A decision maker is choosing between an active action (e.g., purchase a house, invest certain stock) and a passive action. The payoff of the active action depends on the buyer's private type and also an unknown state of nature. An…
Most work in mechanism design assumes that buyers are risk neutral; some considers risk aversion arising due to a non-linear utility for money. Yet behavioral studies have established that real agents exhibit risk attitudes which cannot be…
We continue the study of the performance for fixed-price mechanisms in the bilateral trade problem, and improve approximation ratios of welfare-optimal mechanisms in several settings. Specifically, in the case where only the buyer…