Distributed signaling games

Moran Feldman, Moshe Tennenholtz, Omri Weinstein

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

Abstract

The study of the algorithmic and computational complexity of designing efficient signaling schemes for mechanisms aiming to optimize social welfare or revenue is a recurring theme in recent computer science literature. In reality, however, information is typically not held by a central authority, but is distributed among multiple sources (third-party "mediators"), a fact that dramatically changes the strategic and combinatorial nature of the signaling problem. In this paper we introduce distributed signaling games, while using display advertising as a canonical example for introducing this foundational framework. A distributed signaling game may be a pure coordination game (i.e., a distributed optimization task), or a non-cooperative game. In the context of pure coordination games, we show a wide gap between the computational complexity of the centralized and distributed signaling problems, proving that distributed coordination on revenue-optimal signaling is a much harder problem than its "centralized" counterpart. In the context of non-cooperative games, the outcome generated by the mediators' signals may have different value to each. The reason for that is typically the desire of the auctioneer to align the incentives of the mediators with his own by a compensation relative to the marginal benefit from their signals. We design a mechanism for this problem via a novel application of Shapley's value, and show that it possesses a few interesting economical properties.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2016
EditorsChristos Zaroliagis, Piotr Sankowski
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing
ISBN (Electronic)9783959770156
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2016
Event24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2016 - Aarhus, Denmark
Duration: 22 Aug 201624 Aug 2016

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume57
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Conference

Conference24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2016
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityAarhus
Period22/08/1624/08/16

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Moran Feldman, Moshe Tennenholtz, and Omri Weinstein.

Keywords

  • Display advertising
  • Mechanism design
  • Shapley value
  • Signaling

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Distributed signaling games'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this