SEC 1.413, & streamed via Zoom at: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09
Elisabeth C. Paulson (Harvard Business School)
Outcome-Driven Dynamic Refugee Assignment with Allocation Balancing
Abstract: This work proposes two new dynamic assignment algorithms to match refugees and asylum seekers to geographic localities within a host country. The first, currently implemented in a multi-year pilot in Switzerland, seeks to maximize the average predicted employment level (or any measured outcome of interest) of refugees through a minimum-discord online assignment algorithm. Although the proposed algorithm achieves near-optimal expected...
SEC 1.413, & streamed via Zoom at: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09
Negin Golrezaei, MIT Sloan
March 10, 2023, SEC 1.413 (in-person)
Multi-channel Autobidding with Budget and ROI Constraints
Abstract: In digital online advertising, advertisers procure ad impressions simultaneously on multiple platforms, or so-called channels, such as Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, etc., each of which consists of numerous ad auctions. We study how an advertiser maximizes total conversion (e.g. ad clicks) while satisfying aggregate return-on-investment (ROI) and budget constraints across all channels. In practice, an advertiser does...
SEC 1.413, & streamed via Zoom at: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09
Tao Lin
Persuading a Behavioral Agent: Approximately Best Responding and Learning
Abstract: The classic Bayesian persuasion model assumes that the receiver is fully Bayesian and best responds to the sender’s signaling scheme. In this talk, I will talk about two alternative (and more realistic) behavioral models for the receiver: (1) approximately best responding, and (2) learning. We analyze how these two behavioral models affect the sender’s utility in the Bayesian persuasion problem. We first show that, under natural assumptions, approximately best-...
The Zoom link is as usual: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09 (password: econcs)
This Friday 1-2pm fully on Zoom, we have Yoav Kolumbus (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) on:
Auctions between Regret-Minimizing Agents: On Learning Dynamics and User Incentives
Abstract: The usage of automated learning agents is becoming increasingly prevalent in many online economic applications such as online auctions and automated trading. In this talk we will discuss the strategic situations that the users of such automated learning agents are facing. We propose to view the outcomes of the agents’ dynamics as inducing a “meta-game” between the users....Read more about Auctions between Regret-Minimizing Agents: On Learning Dynamics and User Incentives
Abstract: A key promise of democratic voting is that, by accounting for all constituents’ preferences, it produces decisions that benefit the constituency overall. It is alarming, then, that all deterministic voting rules have unbounded distortion: all such rules — even under reasonable conditions — will sometimes select outcomes that yield essentially no value for constituents. In this talk — based on our paper...
SEC 1.413, & streamed via Zoom at: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09
February 17, 1-2pm in SEC 1.413
Dominik Peters (LAMSADE)
The Method of Equal Shares for Participatory Budgeting
In Participatory Budgeting, cities allow their residents to influence the city’s budget through a vote. The standard voting method simply sorts the project proposals by their number of votes, and then greedily selects projects until the budget limit is reached. We have developed a new voting rule, the Method of Equal Shares, that leads to fairer outcomes. It does this by providing...
Friday at 1pm in SEC 1.413 streamed via Zoom at the link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/95184948637?pwd=bXBIc2U5MEZ0QmRUb01WQ0o0SXRCdz09
This Friday, 1pm-2pm in SEC 1.413, we will be having our final EconCS seminar of the semester, featuring Andreas Haupt from MIT. He will be speaking in-person on:
Controlling Cooperation in Strategic Environments
Abstract:
In many strategic environments, a particular level of cooperation is desired: Cooperation between countries in climate action is considered desirable, while cooperation between sellers in a market is often considered collusion, and undesirable. This set of two projects asks how to control the level of...
