Reducing Communicationg Cost: A Mechanism Design Approach

Speaker: Michelle Zhang

In this paper we study a problem where self-interested agents must interact with some centralized mechanism where this interaction is costly. Instead, agents may choose to interact with neighbours in order to coordinate their actions, potentially resulting in savings with respect to total interaction costs for all involved. We highlight the issues that arise in such a setting for the mechanism as well as for the agents. We propose a cost-sharing mechanism that agents can use to coordinate and reduce their interaction costs. We also discuss how agents might form groups. Experimental works validate our model and proposals.