Venue:

Online, Tecent meeting ID: 691-125-654

Abstract:

This talk introduces a novel mechanism design framework by specifically considering the connections/interactions between participants. Traditionally, the settings of mechanism design mostly assumed that the participants are independent, which is not the case nowadays as people are well-connected via the Internet, especially social networks. This gives us a new dimension to the design. One important usage of their connections is incentivising existing participants to invite more participants to join the game via their connections. This is significant in both theory and practice. In resource allocation (auctions), a larger market will discover more participants’ valuations/demand and increase social welfare or the seller’s revenue. In task allocation (coalitional games), a larger group of participants creates larger coalitions (better outcomes/utilities). In matching, a larger group of participants makes more satisfactory matchings. However, in all these examples, participants are competitors and have no incentives to invite each other. We discuss how to utilize the conflict of their interests to design the incentives. This is a new trend in mechanism design. We will highlight the early solutions and open the floor for discussing the fundamental open questions in the settings of auctions, coalitional games, and matching.