Transforming Energy Networks via Peer to Peer Energy Trading: Potential of Game Theoretic Approaches

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading has emerged as a next-generation energy management mechanism for the smart grid that enables each prosumer of the network to participate in energy trading with one another and the grid. This poses a significant challenge in terms of modeling the decision-making process of each participant with conflicting interest and motivating prosumers to participate in energy trading and to cooperate, if necessary, for achieving different energy management goals. Therefore, such decision-making process needs to be built on solid mathematical and signal processing tools that can ensure an efficient operation of the smart grid. This paper provides an overview of the use of game theoretic approaches for P2P energy trading as a feasible and effective means of energy management. As such, we discuss various games and auction theoretic approaches by following a systematic classification to provide information on the importance of game theory for smart energy research. Then, the paper focuses on the P2P energy trading describing its key features and giving an introduction to an existing P2P testbed. Further, the paper zooms into the detail of some specific game and auction theoretic models that have recently been used in P2P energy trading and discusses some important finding of these schemes.Comment: 38 pages, single column, double spac

Assortative matching through signals

We model signalling in two-sided sequential search with heterogeneous agents and transferable utility. Search via meetings is time-consuming and thereby costly due to discounting. Search via signals is costless, so that agents can avoid almost all search costs if only the signals are truthful. We show that signals will indeed be truthful if the match output function is su ciently super- modular. The unique separating equilibrium is then characterised by perfect positive assortative matching despite the search frictions. In this equilibrium, agents successfully conclude their search after a single meeting, and overall match output is maximised. These results continue to hold when there are also explicit search costs in addition to discounting.assortative matching ; supermodularity ; signals

Interactive Agent-Based Simulation for Experimentation: A Case Study with Cooperatve Game Theory

Incorporating human behavior is a current challenge for agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS). Human behavior includes many different aspects depending on the scenario considered. The scenario context of this paper is strategic coalition formation, which is traditionally modeled using cooperative game theory, but we use ABMS instead; as such, it needs to be validated. One approach to validation is to compare the recorded behavior of humans to what was observed in our simulation. We suggest that using an interactive simulation is a good approach to collecting the necessary human behavior data because the humans would be playing in precisely the same context as the computerized agents. However, such a validation approach may be suspectable to extraneous effects. In this paper, we conducted a correlation research experiment that included an investigation into whether game theory experience, an extraneous variable, affects human behavior in our interactive simulation; our results indicate that it did not make a significant difference. However, in only 42 percent of the trials did the human participants’ behavior result in an outcome predicted by the underlying theory used in our model, i.e., cooperative game theory. This paper also provides a detailed case study for creating an interactive simulation for experimentation

Three Essays in Market Design

Diese Arbeit besteht aus drei unabhängigen Kapiteln. Jedes von ihnen untersucht, wie die Gestaltung von Allokationsregeln das Ergebnis eines Marktes beeinflussen kann. Das erste Kapitel untersucht die Folgen der Beschränkung der Mechanismen, die einem Monopsonisten zur Verfügung stehen, auf Mechanismen, die allen Verkäufern den selben Preis anbietet. Ich zeige, dass dies Beschränkung nicht immer verhindert, dass er Informationen der Verkäufer extrahiert und den Preis damit anpasst. Das zweite Kapitel befasst sich mit der Verteilung von Studentenwohnheimplätzen. Die Studenten dürfen eigene Präferenzen bezüglich eines Wohnheimplatzes sowie zur Zuteilung ihrer Freunde angeben. Ich zeige, dass der random serial dictatorship modifiziert werden kann, um diese neuen Präferenzen zu ermöglichen. Die beiden vorgeschlagenen Lösungen haben schwache Anreizeigenschaften, wenn die Studierenden kooperieren können. Ich zeige jedoch, dass dieses Problem für den ersten Lösungsvorschlag verschwindet, wenn der Markt groß und wettbewerbsfähig ist. Schließlich wird im letzten Kapitel untersucht, wie die Gestaltung von Aufnahmeprüfungen an Universitäten die Zusammensetzung von Gymnasien und Universitäten beeinflussen kann. Das Kapitel vergleicht zwei Aufnahmeprüfungen. In der ersten, werden die besten Schüler jedes Gymnasiums ausgewählt, während in der anderen die insgesamt besten Studenten ausgewählt werden. Wenn der Test verrauscht ist oder wenn die Peer-Effekte für die guten Schüler niedrig sind, schickt der erst Test bessere Studenten in der Universität und fordert Vielfalt in Gymnasien.The three chapters of this thesis are independent. Each of them investigates how the design of allocation rules may shape the outcome of a market. The first chapter studies the consequences of restricting the mechanisms available to a monopsonist to uniform price posting mechanisms. I show that it doesn't always prevent him to extract meaningful information from the sellers before posting the price. I also show that conditioning this offer on the transaction achieving a minimal quantity facilitates this task. Finally, I address the welfare and the implementation issues and apply the results to takeover operations. The second chapter studies the allocation of houses to students, when students have preferences over the houses they receive and over their friends' allocation. I show that the random serial dictatorship can be modified to accommodate this new set-up. The two solutions proposed have weak incentive properties if students can cooperate. However, I show that this problem disappears for one of them if the market is large and competitive. Finally, the last chapter studies how the design of entrance university exams can be used to influence the composition of high schools and universities. It shows that if the test is noisy or if the peer effects for the good students are low, giving the university's slots to the best students of each high school selects better students than giving them to the best students overall and desegregates high schools

Entrepreneurial Action and Entrepreneurial Rents

This dissertation is comprised of three independently standing research papers (chapters 2, 3 and 4) that come together in the common theme of investigating the relationship between entrepreneurial action and performance. The introduction chapter argues that this theme is the main agenda of an entrepreneurial approach to strategy, and provides some background and context for the core chapters. The entrepreneurial approach to strategy falls in line with an array of action-based theories of strategy that trace their economic foundations to the Austrian school of economics. Chapters 2 and 3 take a game theoretical modeling and computer simulation approach and represent one of the first attempts at formal analysis of the Austrian economic foundations of action-based strategy theory. These chapters attempt to demonstrate ways in which formal analysis can begin to approach compatibility with the central tenets of Austrian economics (i.e., subjectivism, dynamism, and methodological individualism). The simulation results shed light on our understanding of the relationship between opportunity creation and discovery, and economic rents in the process of moving towards and away from equilibrium. Chapter 4 operationalizes creation and discovery as exploration and exploitation in an empirical study using data from the Kauffman Firm Survey and highlights the trade-offs faced by start-ups in linking action to different dimensions of performance (i.e., survival, profitability, and getting acquired). Using multinomial logistic regression for competing risks analysis and random effects panel data regression, we find that high technology start-ups face a trade-off between acquisition likelihood and profitability-given-survival while low and medium technology start-ups face a trade-off between survival and profitability-given-survival. Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by highlighting some of the overall contributions and suggesting avenues for future research

Essays in microeconomic theory

The thesis first provides an axiomatic characterization of the probability-weighted minimal norm solution for Bayesian social choice problems with reference points. Chapter 2 provides a characterization of feasibility conditions for general social choice problems. The examples include voting, auctions with externalities, package auctions and exchanges with complementary objects. Chapter 3 examines the existence of ex post efficient and monotone solutions for a two-person bargaining problem. Chapters 4 and 5 investigate two specific problems of designing trading mechanisms with monetary transfers to achieve certain welfare objectives