Abstract
Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanisms are a framework for finding a solution to a distributed optimization problem in systems of self-interested agents. VCG mechanisms have received wide attention in the AI community because they are efficient and strategy-proof; a special case of the Groves family of mechanisms, VCG mechanisms are the only direct-revelation mechanisms that are allocatively efficient and strategy-proof. Unfortunately, they are only weakly budget-balanced. We consider self-interested agents in a network flow domain, and show that in this domain, it is possible to design a mechanism that is both allocatively-efficient and almost completely budget-balanced. This is done by choosing a mechanism that is not strategy-proof but rather strategy-resistant. Instead of using the VCG mechanism, we propose a mechanism in which finding a beneficial manipulation is an NP-complete problem, and the payments from the agents to the mechanism may be minimized as much as desired.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1653-1654 |
Number of pages | 2 |
Journal | IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence |
State | Published - 2005 |
Event | 19th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2005 - Edinburgh, United Kingdom Duration: 30 Jul 2005 → 5 Aug 2005 |