ICES: Small: Mechanism Design for Highly Anonymous Environments

在机制设计中，目标是设计规则，即使代理人的行为是战略性的，也会导致理想的结果。 该项目的重点是一种特定类型的战略行为：一个单一的代理人可以假装成多个代理人，从而参与该机制不止一次。解决这一问题的一种方法是设计机制，使这种行为总是代理的次优。 其他办法包括：使得获得附加标识符的成本很高;对身份进行一些有限的验证;基于代理之间的社交网络结构来检测错误的标识符;以及设计以公正的方式从代理中采样的方法。 这些方法需要计算机科学和经济学的技术相结合，基于互联网的机制，如在线评级系统和在线选举，以及电子商务机制，在经济和社会基础设施中发挥着越来越重要的作用。 往往很容易多次参与这种机制，导致扭曲的结果和经济效率低下。 因此，本项目下的研究有可能使基于互联网的机制更有意义和更有效。

In mechanism design, the goal is to design rules that lead to desirable outcomes even when agents behave strategically. This project focuses on a specific type of strategic behavior: a single agent can pretend to be multiple agents, and thereby participate in the mechanism more than once. One approach to address this is to design the mechanism so that this behavior is always suboptimal for the agent. Other approaches include: making it costly to obtain additional identifiers; doing some limited verification of identities; detecting false identifiers based on the social-network structure among the agents; and designing methods to sample from the agents in an unbiased way. These approaches require a blend of techniques from computer science and economics.Internet-based mechanisms such as online rating systems and online elections, as well as mechanisms for electronic commerce, play an increasingly important role in the economy and social infrastructure. It is often easy to participate multiple times in such mechanisms, leading to distorted results and economic inefficiencies. Hence, the research under this project has the potential to make Internet-based mechanisms more meaningful and efficient.