ACM EC11 Workshop on Implementation Theory
June 6, 2011
San Jose, California, USA
Implementation theory (or Mechanism Design) deals with the
question whether a principal facing a decision that depends on
non-public information, held by one or several agents, can set
up a game that results in the desired decision in equilibrium.
An implementation problem is characterized primarily by a set
of alternatives, preferences of agents over these alternatives
(in particular restrictions on preferences, e.g., when monetary
transfers are allowed the standard assumption of quasi-linear
utility is a restriction), information and beliefs both the
agents and the principal have about their values over
alternatives and others values over the alternatives. A
solution approach starts with making choices on the family of
games that are allowed and the equilibrium concept to be used.
In this context, algorithmic mechanism design has focused
mostly on models with private information, revelation
mechanisms with monetary transfers, and dominant strategy
implementation. In recent years this has been extended by other
models. For example, Bayesian implementation has been
considered as an alternative to dominant strategy
implementation, and full-information models have been used to
understand the design of adword auctions. Still the scope of
models studied is limited when compared with the scope of
models that can be found in economic literature. For example,
economists would very often like to have full implementation,
meaning that every equilibrium implements the desired decision.
On the other hand, they might be willing to consider less
demanding information structure, like a state of nature that is
unknown to the principal, but known to all agents. Other
examples that got little attention in algorithmic mechanism
design are robust implementation, or implementation with
evidence.
On the other hand, questions raised on implementation in
quasi-linear settings by the algorithmic mechanism design
community have revived interest in these settings among
economists, leading for example to new results on classifying
implementable rules in restricted domains.
The fact that algorithmic mechanism design started with
dominant strategy implementation in a private value model might
be attributed to the interest in efficient combinatorial
auctions in the private values model, which can be implemented
by VCG payments. But after many successes in this specific area
it feels like a good moment to have a look beyond this
particular combination of assumptions. This workshop intends to
bring economists and computer scientists together to exchange
ideas on fruitful directions for (algorithmic) implementation
theory. The goal is to inform economists about structural
insights that have been developed while tackling
computationally motivated problems in mechanism design, and
computer scientists about the richness of the economic agenda
of implementation theory.
We invite researchers from both communities to submit
unpublished research papers or extended abstracts to
<implementationEC@gmail.com>. Submissions may be in any format
and there is no hard page limit; if a recommended format is
desired, we suggest using EC style with the main material
fitting in 10 pages and any remainder in appendices, see
<www.sigecom.org/ec11/papers.html>. Papers will not be
published in proceedings, and may therefore currently be under
review at a journal. There will be room for 6-7 presentations,
next to an invited talk by Rakesh Vohra, Northwestern
University.
Topics include but are not limited to: - dynamic
implementation, - full implementation, - implementation with
evidence, - competitive equilibria and implementation, -
implementation in restricted domains, - correlated equilibria,
- general utility functions, - robust implementation.
Organizers:
Vincent Conitzer, Duke University
Robert Kleinberg, Cornell University
Debasis Mishra, Indian Statistical Institute
Rudolf Mueller, Maastricht University
Program Committee:
Sushil Bikhchandani, UCLA
Vincent Conitzer, Duke University
Johannes Hoerner, Yale University
Robert Kleinberg, Cornell University
Debasis Mishra, Indian Statistical Institute
Rudolf Mueller, Maastricht University
Arunava Sen, Indian Statistical Institute
Key Dates:
Sunday, April 3, 2011: Full electronic paper submission due.
Wednesday, April 19, 2011: Notification of acceptance.
Monday, June 6, 2011: Workshop
EC'11 is the twelfth ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce
<www.sigecom.org/ec11/>. It is one of the leading conferences
on the interface between Computer Science and Economics. The
conference offers on June 5 and 6 tutorials and workshops of
general interest to economists and computer scientists, and
proceeds on June 7, 8 and 9 with strictly refereed technical
papers. EC'11 is located with fifteen other computer science
conferences as part of the 2011 ACM Federated Computing
Research Conference <www.acm.org/fcrc/>.
For further information feel free to contact any of the
organizers.
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