RI: Medium: Collaborative Research: Methods of Empirical Mechanism Design

支持群体决策、为分布式任务分配资源或调解社会互动的计算系统的设计与服务于个人或集中用户的相应设计问题根本不同。当涉及到多方或代理时，设计师的目标就会因为这些各方的利益很少完全一致而变得复杂。机制设计领域提供了一个直接解决激励问题的理论框架，因为它与多主体系统的设计有关。然而，这种纯粹的分析方法具有内在的实际局限性。研究人员提出了一种新的方法——经验机制设计（EMD），其前提是用模拟和统计分析等经验方法扩展机制设计的基本基础。这些扩展有望极大地扩展机制设计的范围，使其超越小规模的、程式化的或理想化的领域，这些领域迄今为止主要局限于此。该项目将在市场设计的总体主题下研究几个具体的EMD问题。改善市场设计对公共和私营部门都有重大影响。在公共政策方面，以市场为基础的方法可能在制定应对气候变化的措施、银行改革和监管以及采用新能源等方面发挥重要作用。在商业领域，广告投放、计算服务和其他商品的新市场也需要大量的机制设计工作。无论哪个部门，设计成果都与重要的社会目标有关，包括效率、透明度和稳定性（例如，金融关系）。评估候选机制的经验基础将补充现有的理论观点，丰富设计师和其他利益相关者可用的工具。

The design of computational systems that support group decisions, allocate resources to distributed tasks, or mediate social interactions is fundamentally different from the corresponding design problem serving individual or centralized users. When multiple parties, or agents, are involved, the designer's objectives are complicated by the fact that the interests of these parties are rarely, if ever, perfectly aligned. The field of mechanism design offers a theoretical framework that directly addresses the issue of incentives as it relates to the design of multiagent systems. However, this purely analytical approach carries with it inherent practical limitations. The investigators introduce a new approach, empirical mechanism design (EMD), whose premise is to extend the basic foundation of mechanism design with empirical methods such as simulation and statistical analysis. These extensions promise to dramatically expand the scope of mechanism design beyond the small-scale, stylized, or idealized domains to which it has been predominantly limited to date. The project will investigate several concrete EMD problems, within the general theme of market design. Improved market design has significant implications for the public and private sectors. In public policy, market-based approaches are likely to play a major role in, for example, instituting measures to cope with climate change, banking reform and regulation, and adoption of new energy sources. In the commercial domain, new markets for advertising placement, computational services, and other goods will also entail significant mechanism design efforts. Regardless of the sector, design outcomes bear on important social objectives including efficiency, transparency, and stability (e.g., of financial relationships). An empirical basis for evaluating candidate mechanisms will complement existing theoretical perspectives, enriching the tools available to designers and other stakeholders.