Pseudo-markets for Public Resource Allocation
Abstract
The goal of this project is to design mechanisms that enable efficient sharing of scientific equipment among multiple users, despite the complexity of the preferences and needs, potential for multiple users benefiting, as well as the potential misreporting by the users in order to optimize their own value. Classical mechanism design addresses the issue of potential selfish misreporting by charging the users dependent on their value. However, in the context of scientific results, obtaining data for science is extremely valuable, but this value doesn t mean profit, and charging money for use is not a viable option. The project will consider pseudo-markets- centralized clearinghouses that allocate artificial currencies to users, which are then used for the purpose of participating in the mechanisms and analyzing such mechanisms beyond rather simple settings. A few of the key issues we aim to consider as part of the proposed research include -Different groups may need to collect data from a location for different length of time. -Need for the use of the equipment changes over time. -The same observation can be useful for multiple users, which is great for the value extracted, but presents the mechanism with a free riding problem. -Different users may need to have different priorities in the system, in order to balance between various objectives. The proposed research will aim to tackle the following two high-level challenges- Challenge 1- Can we develop a unified framework for designing and evaluating non-monetary mechanisms for resource sharing, incorporating a variety of issues mentioned above. Challenge 2- Can we better characterize critical trade-offs behind the design of such mechanisms, including tradeoffs of simple policies versus rich bidding languages, computational complexity of different mechanisms-allocation settings, analyzing worst-case versus average-case behavior, and aggregate versus individual-level guarantees.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 29, 2024
- Source ID
- FA95502310068
Entities
People
- Éva Tardos
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Cornell University
- United States Air Force