Spring 2011 Seminar Series

DATE: February 15th
LOCATION: 32-141
TIME: 4:00pm

SPEAKER:
Eva Tardos

TITLE
Auctions Games and The Price of Anarchy

ABSTRACT
In this talk we will consider settings where multiple agents each pursue their own selfish interests, each represented by their own objective function. Traditional algorithms design assumes that a problem is described by a single objective function, and the algorithm designer has the information and power to decide on the outcome, an assumption that fails in many application. Our goal is to quantify the degradation of quality of solution caused by the selfish behavior of users, compared to a centrally designed optimum. In this talk, we will consider this issue in the context of a number of simple auction games, including ad auctions and sequential auctions.