Optimal incentives for participation with type-dependent externalities

Michal Feldman*, Ran Tessler, Yoav Wilf

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We study a "principal-agent" setting in which a principal motivates a team of agents to participate in her project (e.g., friends in a social event or store owners in a shopping mall). A key element in our model is the externalities among the agents; i.e., the benefits that the agents gain from each others' participation. Bernstein and Winter [6] devised a basic model for this setting and characterized the optimal incentive mechanism inducing full participation as a unique Nash equilibrium. Here we suggest and embark on several generalizations and extensions to the basic model, which are grounded in real-life scenarios. First, we study the effect of side payments among the agents on the structure of the optimal mechanism and the principal's utility. Second, we study the optimal partition problem in settings where the principal operates multiple parallel projects.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInternet and Network Economics - 5th International Workshop, WINE 2009, Proceedings
Pages351-361
Number of pages11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes
Event5th International Workshop on Internet and Network Economics, WINE 2009 - Rome, Italy
Duration: 14 Dec 200918 Dec 2009

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume5929 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference5th International Workshop on Internet and Network Economics, WINE 2009
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityRome
Period14/12/0918/12/09

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