AF: Small: Towards More Realistic Models in Algorithmic Mechanism Design

算法机制设计或“激励工程”是博弈论、经济学和计算机科学交叉领域的一个重要课题。该领域的研究集中在算法或协议的设计和分析上，这些算法或协议被明确地设计成理性的参与者，仅仅被他们的自身利益所激励，最终将实现设计者的目标。在互联网时代，一套重要的机制设计应用是巨大的，包括在线拍卖、广告拍卖、文件共享、路由和调度等。本项目旨在发展算法机制设计及其应用的基础。更具体地说，该项目的主要目标是在比过去使用的更现实的建模假设下，为算法机制设计中的基本问题开发简单而强大的机制。基于博弈论和计算机科学的理论基础，该研究将探索在价值相关或共同的代理人的基本设置下的拍卖设计，以及在不知道其价值的代理人可以花费时间和金钱来了解它们的更现实的设置中。PI还将探索在重复和在线设置中的机制设计，以及博弈论匹配问题。这项研究有很大的潜力影响在线拍卖中采用的机制，这是一个巨大的社会效益。

Algorithmic mechanism design, or  "incentive engineering", is a topic of great importance at the intersection of game theory, economics and computer science. Research in this field focuses on the design and analysis of algorithms or protocols that are explicitly designed so that rational participants, motivated solely by their self-interest, will end up achieving the designer's goals. In the age of the Internet, the set of important mechanism design applications is vast, including online auctions, advertising auctions, file sharing, routing and scheduling, among others. This project is aimed at developing the foundations of algorithmic mechanism design and its applications.More specifically, the primary goal of the project is to develop simple and robust mechanisms for fundamental problems in algorithmic mechanism design under more realistic modeling assumptions than those used in the past. Building on the theoretical foundations of game theory and computer science, the research will explore auction design in the fundamental setting of agents whose values are correlated or common, and in more realistic settings where agents that do not know their values can spend time and money to learn about them. The PI will also explore mechanism design in repeated and online settings, as well as game-theoretic matching problems.This research has a great potential to influence mechanisms employed in online auctions, a huge societal benefit.