11 Search Results for "Dobzinski, Shahar"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.27
The Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions in Graphs

Authors: George Christodoulou, Elias Koutsoupias, Annamária Kovács, and Ioannis Vlachos

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)

Abstract
We study truthful and non-truthful protocols for combinatorial auctions in which every item can be allocated to one of two agents (multigraphs), or more generally to a fixed number of agents (hypergraphs). We show some tight - both positive and impossibility - results for the communication complexity of approximating the optimal social welfare for general monotone, subadditive, or XOS valuations.
Cite as

George Christodoulou, Elias Koutsoupias, Annamária Kovács, and Ioannis Vlachos. The Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions in Graphs. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 27:1-27:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{christodoulou_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.27,
  author =	{Christodoulou, George and Koutsoupias, Elias and Kov\'{a}cs, Annam\'{a}ria and Vlachos, Ioannis},
  title =	{{The Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions in Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{27:1--27:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.27},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255163},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.27},
  annote =	{Keywords: Auctions, Communication Complexity, Mechanism Design, Graphs}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.105
Fixed-Parameter Tractable Submodular Maximization over a Matroid

Authors: Shamisa Nematollahi, Adrian Vladu, and Junyao Zhao

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
In this paper, we design fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) algorithms for (non-monotone) submodular maximization subject to a matroid constraint, where the matroid rank r is treated as a fixed parameter that is independent of the total number of elements n. We provide two FPT algorithms: one for the offline setting and another for the random-order streaming setting. Our streaming algorithm achieves a 1/2-ε approximation using Õ(r/poly(ε)) memory, while our offline algorithm obtains a 1-(1)/(e)-ε approximation with n⋅ 2^{Õ(r/poly(ε))} runtime and Õ(r/poly(ε)) memory. Both approximation factors are near-optimal in their respective settings, given existing hardness results. In particular, our offline algorithm demonstrates that - unlike in the polynomial-time regime - there is essentially no separation between monotone and non-monotone submodular maximization under a matroid constraint in the FPT framework.
Cite as

Shamisa Nematollahi, Adrian Vladu, and Junyao Zhao. Fixed-Parameter Tractable Submodular Maximization over a Matroid. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 105:1-105:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{nematollahi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.105,
  author =	{Nematollahi, Shamisa and Vladu, Adrian and Zhao, Junyao},
  title =	{{Fixed-Parameter Tractable Submodular Maximization over a Matroid}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{105:1--105:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.105},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253924},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.105},
  annote =	{Keywords: Submodular maximization, matroids, parameterized complexity, streaming algorithms}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.65
Characterizing Off-Chain Influence Proof Transaction Fee Mechanisms

Authors: Aadityan Ganesh, Clayton Thomas, and S. Matthew Weinberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
Roughgarden [Roughgarden, 2020] initiates the study of Transaction Fee Mechanisms (TFMs), and posits that the on-chain game of a "good" TFM should be on-chain simple (OnC-S), i.e., incentive compatible for both the users and the miner. Recent work of Ganesh, Thomas an Weinberg [Ganesh et al., 2024] posit that they should additionally be Off-Chain Influence-Proof (OffC-IP), which means that the miner cannot achieve any additional revenue by separately conducting an off-chain auction to determine on-chain inclusion. They observe that a cryptographic second-price auction satisfies both properties, but leave open the question of whether other mechanisms (such as those not dependent on cryptography) satisfy these properties. In this paper, we characterize OffC-IP TFMs: They are those satisfying a burn identity relating the burn rule to the allocation rule. In particular, we show that auction is OffC-IP if and only if its (induced direct-revelation) allocation rule X̄(⋅) and burn rule B̅(⋅) (both of which take as input users' values v₁, … , v_n) are truthful when viewing (X̄(⋅), B̅(⋅)) as the allocation and pricing rule of a multi-item auction for a single additive buyer with values (φ(v₁),…, φ(v_n)) equal to the users' virtual values. Building on this burn identity, we characterize OffC-IP and OnC-S TFMs that are deterministic and do not use cryptography: They are posted-price mechanisms with specially-tuned burns. As a corollary, we show that such TFMs can only exist with infinite supply and prior-dependence. However, we show that for randomized TFMs, there are additional OnC-S and OffC-IP auctions that do not use cryptography (even when there is {finite} supply, under prior-dependence with a bounded prior distribution). Holistically, our results show that while OffC-IP is a fairly stringent requirement, families of OffC-IP mechanisms can be found for a variety of settings.
Cite as

Aadityan Ganesh, Clayton Thomas, and S. Matthew Weinberg. Characterizing Off-Chain Influence Proof Transaction Fee Mechanisms. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 65:1-65:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{ganesh_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.65,
  author =	{Ganesh, Aadityan and Thomas, Clayton and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  title =	{{Characterizing Off-Chain Influence Proof Transaction Fee Mechanisms}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{65:1--65:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.65},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253527},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.65},
  annote =	{Keywords: Transaction Fee Mechanism Design, Off-Chain Influence Proofness, Blockchain, Decentralized Finance, Simple Auctions}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.18
q-Partitioning Valuations: Exploring the Space Between Subadditive and Fractionally Subadditive Valuations

Authors: Kiril Bangachev and S. Matthew Weinberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
For a set M of m elements, we define a decreasing chain of classes of normalized monotone-increasing valuation functions from 2^M to ℝ_{≥ 0}, parameterized by an integer q ∈ [2,m]. For a given q, we refer to the class as q-partitioning. A valuation function is subadditive if and only if it is 2-partitioning, and fractionally subadditive if and only if it is m-partitioning. Thus, our chain establishes an interpolation between subadditive and fractionally subadditive valuations. We show that this interpolation is smooth (q-partitioning valuations are "nearly" (q-1)-partitioning in a precise sense, Theorem 6), interpretable (the definition arises by analyzing the core of a cost-sharing game, à la the Bondareva-Shapley Theorem for fractionally subadditive valuations, Section 3.1), and non-trivial (the class of q-partitioning valuations is distinct for all q, Proposition 3). For domains where provable separations exist between subadditive and fractionally subadditive, we interpolate the stronger guarantees achievable for fractionally subadditive valuations to all q ∈ {2,…, m}. Two highlights are the following: 1) An Ω ((log log q)/(log log m))-competitive posted price mechanism for q-partitioning valuations. Note that this matches asymptotically the state-of-the-art for both subadditive (q = 2) [Paul Dütting et al., 2020], and fractionally subadditive (q = m) [Feldman et al., 2015]. 2) Two upper-tail concentration inequalities on 1-Lipschitz, q-partitioning valuations over independent items. One extends the state-of-the-art for q = m to q < m, the other improves the state-of-the-art for q = 2 for q > 2. Our concentration inequalities imply several corollaries that interpolate between subadditive and fractionally subadditive, for example: 𝔼[v(S)] ≤ (1 + 1/log q)Median[v(S)] + O(log q). To prove this, we develop a new isoperimetric inequality using Talagrand’s method of control by q points, which may be of independent interest. We also discuss other probabilistic inequalities and game-theoretic applications of q-partitioning valuations, and connections to subadditive MPH-k valuations [Tomer Ezra et al., 2019].
Cite as

Kiril Bangachev and S. Matthew Weinberg. q-Partitioning Valuations: Exploring the Space Between Subadditive and Fractionally Subadditive Valuations. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 18:1-18:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{bangachev_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.18,
  author =	{Bangachev, Kiril and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  title =	{{q-Partitioning Valuations: Exploring the Space Between Subadditive and Fractionally Subadditive Valuations}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-233956},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Subadditive Functions, Fractionally Subadditive Functions, Posted Price Mechanisms, Concentration Inequalities}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.98
The Long Arm of Nashian Allocation in Online p-Mean Welfare Maximization

Authors: Zhiyi Huang, Chui Shan Lee, Xinkai Shu, and Zhaozi Wang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
We study the online allocation of divisible items to n agents with additive valuations for p-mean welfare maximization, a problem introduced by Barman, Khan, and Maiti (2022). Our algorithmic and hardness results characterize the optimal competitive ratios for the entire spectrum of -∞ ≤ p ≤ 1. Surprisingly, our improved algorithms for all p ≤ (1)/(log n) are simply the greedy algorithm for the Nash welfare, supplemented with two auxiliary components to ensure all agents have non-zero utilities and to help a small number of agents with low utilities. In this sense, the long arm of Nashian allocation achieves near-optimal competitive ratios not only for Nash welfare but also all the way to egalitarian welfare.
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Zhiyi Huang, Chui Shan Lee, Xinkai Shu, and Zhaozi Wang. The Long Arm of Nashian Allocation in Online p-Mean Welfare Maximization. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 98:1-98:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{huang_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.98,
  author =	{Huang, Zhiyi and Lee, Chui Shan and Shu, Xinkai and Wang, Zhaozi},
  title =	{{The Long Arm of Nashian Allocation in Online p-Mean Welfare Maximization}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{98:1--98:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.98},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234754},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.98},
  annote =	{Keywords: Online Algorithms, Fair Division, Nash Welfare}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.21
OWA for Bipartite Assignments

Authors: Jabari Hastings, Sigal Oren, and Omer Reingold

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 329, 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)

Abstract
In resource allocation problems, a central planner often strives to have a fair assignment. A challenge they might face, however, is that there are several objectives that could be argued to be fair, such as the max-min and maximum social welfare. In this work, we study bipartite assignment problems involving the optimization of a class of functions that is sensitive to the relative utilities derived by individuals in allocation and captures these traditional objectives. We introduce and study a subclass of evaluation functions that targets the average welfare attained within some interval of the economic ladder (e.g., the bottom 10%, middle 50%, or top 80%). We provide an efficient algorithm that can be used to optimize the welfare for an arbitrary interval and also show how the approach can be used to approximate more general evaluation functions. We also study a subclass of evaluation functions consisting of the "fair" ordered weighted averages (OWA) introduced by Lesca et al. (Algorithmica 2019), which are most sensitive to the utilities received by the worst-off individuals. We provide a simple proof that optimizing this objective belongs to the class XP.
Cite as

Jabari Hastings, Sigal Oren, and Omer Reingold. OWA for Bipartite Assignments. In 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 329, pp. 21:1-21:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{hastings_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2025.21,
  author =	{Hastings, Jabari and Oren, Sigal and Reingold, Omer},
  title =	{{OWA for Bipartite Assignments}},
  booktitle =	{6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-367-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{329},
  editor =	{Bun, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231482},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: fairness, matchings, approximation algorithms}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.84
Quantum Communication Complexity of Classical Auctions

Authors: Aviad Rubinstein and Zixin Zhou

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 325, 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)

Abstract
We study the fundamental, classical mechanism design problem of single-buyer multi-item Bayesian revenue-maximizing auctions under the lens of communication complexity between the buyer and the seller. Specifically, we ask whether using quantum communication can be more efficient than classical communication. We have two sets of results, revealing a surprisingly rich landscape - which looks quite different from both quantum communication in non-strategic parties, and classical communication in mechanism design. We first study the expected communication complexity of approximately optimal auctions. We give quantum auction protocols for buyers with unit-demand or combinatorial valuations that obtain an arbitrarily good approximation of the optimal revenue while running in exponentially more efficient communication compared to classical approximately optimal auctions. However, these auctions come with the caveat that they may require the seller to charge exponentially large payments from a deviating buyer. We show that this caveat is necessary - we give an exponential lower bound on the product of the expected quantum communication and the maximum payment. We then study the worst-case communication complexity of exactly optimal auctions in an extremely simple setting: additive buyer’s valuations over two items. We show the following separations: - There exists a prior where the optimal classical auction protocol requires infinitely many bits, but a one-way message of 1 qubit and 2 classical bits suffices. - There exists a prior where no finite one-way quantum auction protocol can obtain the optimal revenue. However, there is a barely-interactive revenue-optimal quantum auction protocol with the following simple structure: the seller prepares a pair of qubits in the EPR state, sends one of them to the buyer, and then the buyer sends 1 qubit and 2 classical bits. - There exists a prior where no multi-round quantum auction protocol with a finite bound on communication complexity can obtain the optimal revenue.
Cite as

Aviad Rubinstein and Zixin Zhou. Quantum Communication Complexity of Classical Auctions. In 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 325, pp. 84:1-84:27, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{rubinstein_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.84,
  author =	{Rubinstein, Aviad and Zhou, Zixin},
  title =	{{Quantum Communication Complexity of Classical Auctions}},
  booktitle =	{16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)},
  pages =	{84:1--84:27},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-361-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{325},
  editor =	{Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.84},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-227124},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.84},
  annote =	{Keywords: Mechanism design, Communication complexity, Quantum computing}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.44
Rigidity in Mechanism Design and Its Applications

Authors: Shahar Dobzinski and Ariel Shaulker

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 251, 14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023)

Abstract
We introduce the notion of rigidity in auction design and use it to analyze some fundamental aspects of mechanism design. We focus on the setting of a single-item auction where the values of the bidders are drawn from some (possibly correlated) distribution F. Let f be the allocation function of an optimal mechanism for F. Informally, S is (linearly) rigid in F if for every mechanism M' with an allocation function f' where f and f' agree on the allocation of at most x-fraction of the instances of S, it holds that the expected revenue of M' is at most an x fraction of the optimal revenue. We start with using rigidity to explain the singular success of Cremer and McLean’s auction assuming interim individual rationality. Recall that the revenue of Cremer and McLean’s auction is the optimal welfare if the distribution obeys a certain "full rank" conditions, but no analogous constructions are known if this condition does not hold. We show that the allocation function of the Cremer and McLean auction has logarithmic (in the size of the support) Kolmogorov complexity, whereas we use rigidity to show that there exist distributions that do not obey the full rank condition for which the allocation function of every mechanism that provides a constant approximation is almost linear. We further investigate rigidity assuming different notions of individual rationality. Assuming ex-post individual rationality, if there exists a rigid set then the structure of the optimal mechanism is relatively simple: the player with the highest value "usually" wins the item and contributes most of the revenue. In contrast, assuming interim individual rationality, there are distributions with a rigid set S where the optimal mechanism has no obvious allocation pattern (in the sense that its Kolmogorov complexity is high). Since the existence of rigid sets essentially implies that the hands of the designer are tied, our results help explain why we have little hope of developing good, simple and generic approximation mechanisms in the interim individual rationality world.
Cite as

Shahar Dobzinski and Ariel Shaulker. Rigidity in Mechanism Design and Its Applications. In 14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 251, pp. 44:1-44:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{dobzinski_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.44,
  author =	{Dobzinski, Shahar and Shaulker, Ariel},
  title =	{{Rigidity in Mechanism Design and Its Applications}},
  booktitle =	{14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023)},
  pages =	{44:1--44:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-263-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{251},
  editor =	{Tauman Kalai, Yael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.44},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-175479},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.44},
  annote =	{Keywords: Revenue Maximization, Auctions}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.55
Mechanism Design with Moral Bidders

Authors: Shahar Dobzinski and Sigal Oren

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)

Abstract
A rapidly growing literature on lying in behavioral economics and psychology shows that individuals often do not lie even when lying maximizes their utility. In this work, we attempt to incorporate these findings into the theory of mechanism design. We consider players that have a preference for truth-telling and will only lie if their benefit from lying is sufficiently larger than the loss of the others. To accommodate such players, we introduce α-moral mechanisms, in which the gain of a player from misreporting his true value, comparing to truth-telling, is at most α times the loss that the others incur due to misreporting. Note that a 0-moral mechanism is a truthful mechanism. We develop a theory of moral mechanisms in the canonical setting of single-item auctions within the "reasonable" range of α, 0 ≤ α ≤ 1. We identify similarities and disparities to the standard theory of truthful mechanisms. In particular, we show that the allocation function does not uniquely determine the payments and is unlikely to admit a simple characterization. In contrast, recall that monotonicity characterizes the allocation function of truthful mechanisms. Our main technical effort is invested in determining whether the auctioneer can exploit the preference for truth-telling of the players to extract more revenue comparing to truthful mechanisms. We show that the auctioneer can indeed extract more revenue when the values of the players are correlated, even when there are only two players. However, we show that truthful mechanisms are revenue-maximizing even among moral ones when the values of the players are independently drawn from certain identical distributions (e.g., the uniform and exponential distributions). A by-product of our proof that optimal moral mechanisms are truthful is an alternative proof to Myerson’s optimal truthful mechanism characterization in the settings that we consider. We flesh out this approach by providing an alternative proof that does not involve moral mechanisms to Myerson’s characterization of optimal truthful mechanisms to all settings in which the values are independently drawn from regular distributions (not necessarily identical).
Cite as

Shahar Dobzinski and Sigal Oren. Mechanism Design with Moral Bidders. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 55:1-55:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{dobzinski_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.55,
  author =	{Dobzinski, Shahar and Oren, Sigal},
  title =	{{Mechanism Design with Moral Bidders}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156513},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: Mechanism Design, Cognitive Biases, Revenue Maximization}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.92
On Fairness and Stability in Two-Sided Matchings

Authors: Gili Karni, Guy N. Rothblum, and Gal Yona

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)

Abstract
There are growing concerns that algorithms, which increasingly make or influence important decisions pertaining to individuals, might produce outcomes that discriminate against protected groups. We study such fairness concerns in the context of a two-sided market, where there are two sets of agents, and each agent has preferences over the other set. The goal is producing a matching between the sets. Throughout this work, we use the example of matching medical residents (who we call "doctors") to hospitals. This setting has been the focus of a rich body of work. The seminal work of Gale and Shapley formulated a stability desideratum, and showed that a stable matching always exists and can be found in polynomial time. With fairness concerns in mind, it is natural to ask: might a stable matching be discriminatory towards some of the doctors? How can we obtain a fair matching? The question is interesting both when hospital preferences might be discriminatory, and also when each hospital’s preferences are fair. We study this question through the lens of metric-based fairness notions (Dwork et al. [ITCS 2012] and Kim et al. [ITCS 2020]). We formulate appropriate definitions of fairness and stability in the presence of a similarity metric, and ask: does a fair and stable matching always exist? Can such a matching be found in polynomial time? Can classical Gale-Shapley algorithms find such a matching? Our contributions are as follows: - Composition failures for classical algorithms. We show that composing the Gale-Shapley algorithm with fair hospital preferences can produce blatantly unfair outcomes. - New algorithms for finding fair and stable matchings. Our main technical contributions are efficient new algorithms for finding fair and stable matchings when: (i) the hospitals' preferences are fair, and (ii) the fairness metric satisfies a strong "proto-metric" condition: the distance between every two doctors is either zero or one. In particular, these algorithms also show that, in this setting, fairness and stability are compatible. - Barriers for finding fair and stable matchings in the general case. We show that if the hospital preferences can be unfair, or if the metric fails to satisfy the proto-metric condition, then no algorithm in a natural class can find a fair and stable matching. The natural class includes the classical Gale-Shapley algorithms and our new algorithms.
Cite as

Gili Karni, Guy N. Rothblum, and Gal Yona. On Fairness and Stability in Two-Sided Matchings. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 92:1-92:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{karni_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.92,
  author =	{Karni, Gili and Rothblum, Guy N. and Yona, Gal},
  title =	{{On Fairness and Stability in Two-Sided Matchings}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{92:1--92:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.92},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156880},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.92},
  annote =	{Keywords: algorithmic fairness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2020.61
Implementation in Advised Strategies: Welfare Guarantees from Posted-Price Mechanisms When Demand Queries Are NP-Hard

Authors: Linda Cai, Clay Thomas, and S. Matthew Weinberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 151, 11th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2020)

Abstract
State-of-the-art posted-price mechanisms for submodular bidders with m items achieve approximation guarantees of O((log log m)^3) [Sepehr Assadi and Sahil Singla, 2019]. Their truthfulness, however, requires bidders to compute an NP-hard demand-query. Some computational complexity of this form is unavoidable, as it is NP-hard for truthful mechanisms to guarantee even an m^(1/2-ε)-approximation for any ε > 0 [Shahar Dobzinski and Jan Vondrák, 2016]. Together, these establish a stark distinction between computationally-efficient and communication-efficient truthful mechanisms. We show that this distinction disappears with a mild relaxation of truthfulness, which we term implementation in advised strategies. Specifically, advice maps a tentative strategy either to that same strategy itself, or one that dominates it. We say that a player follows advice as long as they never play actions which are dominated by advice. A poly-time mechanism guarantees an α-approximation in implementation in advised strategies if there exists advice (which runs in poly-time) for each player such that an α-approximation is achieved whenever all players follow advice. Using an appropriate bicriterion notion of approximate demand queries (which can be computed in poly-time), we establish that (a slight modification of) the [Sepehr Assadi and Sahil Singla, 2019] mechanism achieves the same O((log log m)^3)-approximation in implementation in advised strategies.
Cite as

Linda Cai, Clay Thomas, and S. Matthew Weinberg. Implementation in Advised Strategies: Welfare Guarantees from Posted-Price Mechanisms When Demand Queries Are NP-Hard. In 11th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 151, pp. 61:1-61:32, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{cai_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2020.61,
  author =	{Cai, Linda and Thomas, Clay and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  title =	{{Implementation in Advised Strategies: Welfare Guarantees from Posted-Price Mechanisms When Demand Queries Are NP-Hard}},
  booktitle =	{11th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2020)},
  pages =	{61:1--61:32},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-134-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{151},
  editor =	{Vidick, Thomas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2020.61},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-117464},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2020.61},
  annote =	{Keywords: Combinatorial auctions, Posted-Price mechanisms, Submodular valuations, Incentive compatible}
}
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