NeTS: Large: Networked Markets: Theory and Applications

从互联网到电网再到银行的互联，网络是当今世界的一个普遍特征。它们的无处不在对现代市场产生了根本性的影响。在信息技术进步的推动下，现代市场变得更加动态、复杂和相互关联。虽然市场过去发展缓慢，管理贸易的机构简单，寻找“合适的”贸易伙伴是一项艰巨的挑战；当今新兴市场通常是复杂的平台，有一系列动态机制促进参与者之间的匹配。这为市场的设计和运作提供了前所未有的控制水平，这导致它们被纳入网络系统中越来越重要的组成部分，例如云计算市场中的动态实时定价和金融市场中的自动交易。市场的变化也从根本上影响了信息技术，特别是在网络系统的背景下——越来越多的情况是，过去纯粹是“工程”的网络系统现在由市场和工程的混合管理，例如，电力市场是通过不同时间尺度（提前一天、实时等）的多个市场的组合来管理的，并通过快速规模控制系统来确保稳定性。因此，今天的网络和市场比以往任何时候都更加紧密地联系在一起，因此有必要将它们作为一个统一的整体来研究，而不是作为单独的领域。特别是，将市场纳入网络系统会在“工程师”和“经济学家”之间产生不可避免的相互作用，就系统的哪些方面通过控制政策、协议等进行管理，哪些方面通过定价、市场设计等经济工具进行管理，以及两者如何相互作用而言。工程选择对经济效率有影响，反之亦然，这一事实使这一问题变得更具挑战性。这项资助的研究人员寻求为网络市场的研究发展理论基础，并将重点关注三个一般主题：(i)市场之间联系的影响，（ii）市场参与者之间联系的影响，以及（iii）理解和控制网络市场中的传染。这些主题跨越了围绕网络市场的许多挑战和机遇，更好地理解这些问题对于研究重点关注的五个目标应用中的每一个都至关重要：云计算市场、数据市场、电力市场、匹配市场（例如劳动力市场）和金融市场。特别值得一提的是，这项资助的研究结果将为网络市场的运作提供新的见解，从而为市场经营者/设计者和市场参与者带来好处。这项研究是高度跨学科的，将计算机科学和经济学联系在一起，重点关注工程系统和社会系统中不同领域的应用。作为拨款的一部分，研究人员正在加州理工学院启动一个新的计算机和数学科学博士项目，该项目侧重于培养具有计算机与科学和工程交叉学科兴趣的学生。其他外联活动包括每年有学术和工业出席的研讨会。此外，研究人员在每个应用领域的强大行业联系突出了拟议研究从学术界过渡到实践的潜力。

From the internet to the electricity grid to the interconnections of banks, networks are a pervasive feature of our world today. Their ubiquity has had a fundamental impact on modern markets. Driven by advances in information technology, modern marketplaces are becoming ever more dynamic, complex, and interconnected. While markets used to be slow to evolve, have simple institutions governing trade, and make finding the "right" trading partner a daunting challenge; markets emerging today are typically complex platforms, with a range of dynamic mechanisms for facilitating matches amongst participants. This gives an unprecedented level of control over the design and operation of markets, which has led to their incorporation as increasingly crucial components of networked systems, e.g., dynamic real time pricing in cloud computing markets and automated trading in financial markets. The changes in markets have also fundamentally impacted information technology, especially in the context of networked systems -- it is increasingly the case that networked systems that used to be purely "engineered" are now being governed by a mixture of markets and engineering, e.g., electricity markets are managed through a combination of multiple markets at different timescales (day ahead, real-time, etc.) and fast-time scale control systems to ensure stability. Thus, networks and markets are connected today more than ever, and so it is necessary to study them as a unified whole rather than as individual fields. In particular, the incorporation of markets into networked systems creates an unavoidable interaction between "the engineer" and "the economist" in terms of which aspects of the system are managed via control policies, protocols, etc., which aspects are managed via economic tools such as pricing, market design, etc., and how the two interact. This is made even more challenging by the fact that engineering choices have consequences for economic efficiency and vice versa.The researchers in this grant seeks to develop theoretical foundations for the study of networked markets, and will focus on three general themes: (i) the impact of connections between markets, (ii) the impact of connections between participants of markets, and (iii) understanding and controlling contagion in networked markets. These themes cut across many of the challenges and opportunities surrounding networked markets, and a better understanding of these issues is crucial for each of the five target applications on which the research focuses: cloud computing markets, data markets, electricity markets, matching markets (e.g. labor markets), and financial markets. In particular, the results of the research in this grant will provide new insights into the functioning of networked markets that can provide benefits for both market operators/designers and market participants.The research is highly interdisciplinary, connecting computer science and economics and focusing on applications from diverse areas in both engineered and social systems. As part of the grant, the investigators are initiating a new PhD program on Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech, which focuses training students with cross-cutting interdisciplinary interests at the interface of computing with science and engineering. Additional outreach activities include yearly workshops with both academic and industrial attendance. Further, the strong industry connections of the investigators in each of the application areas highlight the potential for the proposed research to make the transition from academia to practice.