30 October 2009, Computational Social Choice Seminar, Speaker: Krzysztof Apt (CWI & ILLC)

Abstract

Mechanism design is concerned with the problem of arranging economic interactions in such a way that self-interested agents take decisions that are good for the society. This can be achieved but is costly. In our previous works we studied maximization of social welfare in the customary simultaneous mechanisms for the single unit auction and the public project problem.

In this talk we survey our recent results concerning maximization of social welfare in sequential mechanisms for these two problems. From the game-theoretic point of view this relies on safety-level equilibria in pre-Bayesian games, a concept introduced in '06 by Ashlagi, Monderer and Tennenholtz. (Based on works with A. Estevez-Fernandez and V. Markakis.)

For more information, see http://www.illc.uva.nl/~ulle/seminar/, or contact Ulle Endriss (ulle at illc.uva.nl).