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This article studies the problem of evaluating the information that a Principal lacks when establishing an incentive contract with an Agent whose effort is not observable. The Principal ("she") pays a continuous rent to the Agent ("he"),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-10 Ishak Hajjej , Caroline Hillairet , Mohamed Mnif

Distributed aggregative optimization methods are gaining increased traction due to their ability to address cooperative control and optimization problems, where the objective function of each agent depends not only on its own decision…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Ziqin Chen , Magnus Egerstedt , Yongqiang Wang

I study a moral hazard problem between a principal and multiple agents who experience positive peer effects represented by a (weighted) network. Under the optimal linear contract, the principal provides high-powered incentives to central…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-06-18 Marc Claveria-Mayol

The existing literature on optimal auctions focuses on optimizing the expected revenue of the seller, and is appropriate for risk-neutral sellers. In this paper, we identify good mechanisms for risk-averse sellers. As is standard in the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2010-04-02 Mukund Sundararajan , Qiqi Yan

We study the robust regulation of contracts in moral hazard problems. A firm offers a contract to incentivise a worker protected by limited liability. A regulator restricts the set of permissible contracts to (i) improve efficiency and (ii)…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-09-17 Théo Durandard , Alexis Ghersengorin

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

We propose decentralized primal-dual methods for cooperative multi-agent consensus optimization problems over both static and time-varying communication networks, where only local communications are allowed. The objective is to minimize the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-23 Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani , Necdet Serhat Aybat

Large electricity customers (e.g., large data centers) can exhibit huge and variable electricity demands, which poses significant challenges for the electricity suppliers to plan for sufficient capacity. Thus, it is desirable to design…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-09-15 Pan Lai , Lingjie Duan , Xiaojun Lin

We study the problem of fair online resource allocation via non-monetary mechanisms, where multiple agents repeatedly share a resource without monetary transfers. Previous work has shown that every agent can guarantee $1/2$ of their ideal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-05-27 David X. Lin , Daniel Hall , Giannis Fikioris , Siddhartha Banerjee , Éva Tardos

A principal contracts with an agent through an informed delegate. Although the principal cannot directly mediate the interaction, she can restrict the menus of contracts the delegate may offer. We characterize the outcomes implementable…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-22 João Thereze , Udayan Vaidya

A canonical setting for non-monetary online resource allocation is one where agents compete over multiple rounds for a single item per round, with i.i.d. valuations and additive utilities across rounds. With $n$ symmetric agents, a natural…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-12-01 David X. Lin , Giannis Fikioris , Siddhartha Banerjee , Éva Tardos

Emerging networked systems become increasingly flexible and reconfigurable. This introduces an opportunity to adjust networked systems in a demand-aware manner, leveraging spatial and temporal locality in the workload for online…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-05-08 Chen Avin , Ingo van Duijn , Stefan Schmid

An employer contracts with a worker to incentivize efforts whose productivity depends on ability; the worker then enters a market that pays him contingent on ability evaluation. With non-additive monitoring technology, the interdependence…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-07-31 Tan Gan , Hongcheng Li

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 consider the problem of Adverse Selection and optimal derivative design within a Principal-Agent framework. The principal's income is exposed to non-hedgeable risk factors arising, for instance, from weather or climate phenomena. She…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2007-10-31 U. Horst , S. Moreno

The system operator's scheduling problem in electricity markets, called unit commitment, is a non-convex mixed-integer program. The optimal value function is non-convex, preventing the application of traditional marginal pricing theory to…

General Economics · Economics 2024-10-03 Conleigh Byers , Brent Eldridge

Environments with fixed adjustment costs such as transaction costs or \lq menu costs\rq$ $ are widespread within economic systems. The presence of fixed minimal adjustment costs produces adjustment stickiness so that agents must choose a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-09 David Mguni

In recent times, various distributed optimization algorithms have been proposed for whose specific agent dynamics global optimality and convergence is proven. However, there exist no general conditions for the design of such algorithms. In…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-14 Pol Jane-Soneira , Charles Muller , Felix Strehle , Sören Hohmann

We treat uncertain linear programming problems by utilizing the notion of weighted analytic centers and notions from the area of multi-criteria decision making. After introducing our approach, we develop interactive cutting-plane algorithms…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-21 Mehdi Karimi , Somayeh Moazeni , Levent Tuncel

In this paper a class of optimization problems with uncertain linear constraints is discussed. It is assumed that the constraint coefficients are random vectors whose probability distributions are only partially known. Possibility theory is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-30 Romain Guillaume , Adam Kasperski , Pawel Zielinski