Price-Based Information Certificates for Minimal-Revelation Combinatorial Auctions

The equilibrium of the direct-revelation Vickrey-Clarke- Groves (VCG) mechanism for combinatorial auctions requires every agent to provide complete information about its preferences. Not only is this unreasonable in settings with costly preference evaluation, but moreover it is often possible to implement the same outcome with incomplete preference information. We formalize the problem of minimal-revelation mechanism design and introduce the concept of minimal information certificates. Linear programming duality theory proves that a class of price-based information certificates are both necessary and sufficient to compute an efficient allocation in a dominant strategy mechanism.Engineering and Applied Science

Secure Sealed-Bid Online Auctions Using Discreet Cryptographic Proofs

Abstract This work describes the design and implementation of an auction system using secure multiparty computation techniques. Our aim is to produce a system that is practical under actual field constraints on computation, memory, and communication. The underlying protocol is privacy-preserving, that is, the winning bid is determined without information about the losing bids leaking to either the auctioneer or other bidders. Practical implementation of the protocol is feasible using circuit-based cryptographic proofs along with additively homomorphic bit commitment. Moreover, we propose the development of a Proof Certificate standard. These certificates convey sufficient information to recreate the cryptographic proofs and verify them offline

Systems-compatible Incentives

Originally, the Internet was a technological playground, a collaborative endeavor among researchers who shared the common goal of achieving communication. Self-interest used not to be a concern, but the motivations of the Internet's participants have broadened. Today, the Internet consists of millions of commercial entities and nearly 2 billion users, who often have conflicting goals. For example, while Facebook gives users the illusion of access control, users do not have the ability to control how the personal data they upload is shared or sold by Facebook. Even in BitTorrent, where all users seemingly have the same motivation of downloading a file as quickly as possible, users can subvert the protocol to download more quickly without giving their fair share. These examples demonstrate that protocols that are merely technologically proficient are not enough. Successful networked systems must account for potentially competing interests. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how to build systems that give users incentives to follow the systems' protocols. To achieve incentive-compatible systems, I apply mechanisms from game theory and auction theory to protocol design. This approach has been considered in prior literature, but unfortunately has resulted in few real, deployed systems with incentives to cooperate. I identify the primary challenge in applying mechanism design and game theory to large-scale systems: the goals and assumptions of economic mechanisms often do not match those of networked systems. For example, while auction theory may assume a centralized clearing house, there is no analog in a decentralized system seeking to avoid single points of failure or centralized policies. Similarly, game theory often assumes that each player is able to observe everyone else's actions, or at the very least know how many other players there are, but maintaining perfect system-wide information is impossible in most systems. In other words, not all incentive mechanisms are systems-compatible. The main contribution of this dissertation is the design, implementation, and evaluation of various systems-compatible incentive mechanisms and their application to a wide range of deployable systems. These systems include BitTorrent, which is used to distribute a large file to a large number of downloaders, PeerWise, which leverages user cooperation to achieve lower latencies in Internet routing, and Hoodnets, a new system I present that allows users to share their cellular data access to obtain greater bandwidth on their mobile devices. Each of these systems represents a different point in the design space of systems-compatible incentives. Taken together, along with their implementations and evaluations, these systems demonstrate that systems-compatibility is crucial in achieving practical incentives in real systems. I present design principles outlining how to achieve systems-compatible incentives, which may serve an even broader range of systems than considered herein. I conclude this dissertation with what I consider to be the most important open problems in aligning the competing interests of the Internet's participants

Strategy-proof resource pricing in federated systems

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Eseje z behavioralni a experimentalni ekonomie

CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Economic Studies Essays in Behavioural and Experimental Economics Abstract for Dissertation thesis Author: Mgr. Jindřich Matoušek Study program: Economics and Finance Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Tomáš Havránek, Ph.D. Year of defense: 2022 Abstract The dissertation consists of three papers presenting applications of experimen- tal as well as statistical methods to the topics of behavioural economics. The first paper introduces a series of laboratory experiments in which I apply the experimental methods to a complex decision making problem. The second and third papers present quantitative syntheses of the literature on the classi- cal topics of behavioural economics. The general introduction connects these chapters together. Detailed abstracts for individual papers are presented at the beginning of each chapter. In the first paper, I experimentally examine two complex multi-unit auc- tion mechanisms with an opportunity to communicate and thus collude while comparing these mechanisms in terms of efficiency. Strikingly, allowing for communication increases efficiency in examined auction formats. A cheap-talk collusive agreement resulted in a better allocation compared to the treatments without communication. I hypothesize that complex auction formats makes...CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Economic Studies Essays in Behavioural and Experimental Economics Abstrakt Author: Mgr. Jind ich Matouöek Study program: Economics and Finance Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Tomáö Havránek, Ph.D. Year of defense: 2022 Abstrakt Disertační práce se skládá ze tří článků prezentujících aplikace experimentálních a statistických metod na témata behaviorální ekonomie. První článek představuje sérii laboratorních experimentů, ve kterých aplikuji experimentální metody na komplexní problém rozhodování. Druhý a třetí článek představují kvantitativní syntézy literatury klasických témat behaviorální ekonomie. Obecný úvod spojuje tyto kapitoly dohromady. Na začátku každé kapitoly jsou uvedeny podrobné abstrakty jednotlivých článků. V prvním článku experimentálně zkoumám dva komplexní více-jednotkové aukční mechanismy s možností komunikace mezi účastníky, a porovnávám tyto mechanismy z hlediska efektivity. Umožnění komunikace překvapivě zvyšuje efektivitu ve zkoumaných aukčních formátech. Koluzní dohoda vedla v našem případě k lepšímu rozdělení ve srovnání s aukcí bez komunikace. Domnívám se, že složité formáty aukcí příliš komplikují rozhodování účastníků a způsobují neefektivitu, zejména při aukcích s velkým množstvím zboží k prodeji. Ve druhém článku představuji...Institute of Economic StudiesInstitut ekonomických studiíFakulta sociálních vědFaculty of Social Science

LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volume

LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volum

Game theoretic approaches to parallel machine scheduling

Tesis (Ingeniero Industrial)En un problema de programación de máquinas idénticas en paralelo que persigue minimizar dos criterios en particular, lapso y tiempo de terminación total, un mecanismo basado en la teoría de juegos es propuesto para solucionarlo. Se considera un juego bipersonal no-cooperativo de 2x2 en el que cada jugador busca minimizar alguno de estos criterios que propone el problema de producción. Cada escenario implica que los jugadores jueguen de manera simultanea y busquen minimizar los costos que están relacionados con los criterios a optimizar. El jugador que representa al trabajo tiene la opción de dejar al trabajo en su posición actual o moverlo a una posición previa, buscando minimizar su tiempo de terminación; mientras que el otro jugador, un agente controlador, toma la decisión de dejar al trabajo en la máquina actual o moverlo a otra, esperando balancear la carga de la máquina y minimizar el lapso. Como resultado de una serie de juegos repetidos entre estos agentes, el Frente de Pareto es construido, mostrando un conjunto de soluciones eficientes al problema.Universidad del Norte. Programa de Ingeniería Industrial

Live Biofeedback in Electronic Markets

Decisions in electronic markets are frequently made under time pressure and in competition to others. Both factors can cause the decision maker to experience high levels of arousal. Without sound emotional processing, arousal can have detrimental effects on decision making. In this thesis the use of live biofeedback to support emotion perception and thus, to facilitate emotion regulation during emotionally charged decision making is evaluated. Based on a systematic literature review existing live biofeedback research is analyzed in Chapter 2. A transmission model for live biofeedback is developed that classifies the main components of live biofeedback applications and the flow of information in form of transmission signals. To address the identified research gaps, three experimental studies (study I-III) are designed that investigate the effects of arousal and the use of live biofeedback in electronic markets. Study I in Chapter 3 examines how arousal affects purchasing decisions with and without social interaction to analyze the context dependence of the effects of arousal on decision making. The results reveal that in auctions, where social interaction is a key characteristic, arousal increases final prices. Purchasing decisions without social interaction, however, are not affected by arousal. As social interaction has been identified as an essential factor for arousal to affect decision making, the subsequent studies II and III investigate the effects of live biofeedback in markets experiments that involve social interaction. Study II in Chapter 4 evaluates the effects of live biofeedback on emotional processing in the context of auction bidding. Without prior biofeedback training this novel user interface element alters decision making processes at a cognitive and affective level. Study participants, who suppress emotional expressions, experience higher levels of physiological arousal. When provided with live biofeedback, this effect is mitigated. Furthermore, participants who receive live biofeedback show increased coherence of physiological and perceived arousal. Study III in Chapter 5 examines the use of biofeedback in a game that has frequently been used to model financial markets, that is, the beauty contest game. In this study, participants complete a training in order to familiarize with the live biofeedback prior to the experiment. The analysis reveals that live biofeedback increases arousal perception and reduces suppression of emotional expressions. Importantly, participants who receive live biofeedback yield higher decision making quality. In summary, this thesis provides further insights into the effects of arousal on behavior and how live biofeedback affects emotional processing and decision making in electronic markets. The results of this thesis suggest that live biofeedback is a promising tool to support emotion perception, regulation, and decision making of market participants