Approximation Algorithms for Scheduling on Multiple Machines
FOCS '05 Proceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science
A sufficient condition for truthfulness with single parameter agents
EC '06 Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Electronic commerce
ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG)
Truthful mechanism design for multi-dimensional scheduling via cycle monotonicity
Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Electronic commerce
A lower bound for scheduling mechanisms
SODA '07 Proceedings of the eighteenth annual ACM-SIAM symposium on Discrete algorithms
A Characterization of 2-Player Mechanisms for Scheduling
ESA '08 Proceedings of the 16th annual European symposium on Algorithms
Approximation and Online Algorithms
Truthful mechanisms for two-range-values variant of unrelated scheduling
Theoretical Computer Science
Truthful Mechanisms for Selfish Routing and Two-Parameter Agents
SAGT '09 Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory
Mechanism design for fractional scheduling on unrelated machines
ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG)
Preemptive scheduling on selfish machines
CAAN'07 Proceedings of the 4th conference on Combinatorial and algorithmic aspects of networking
A deterministic truthful PTAS for scheduling related machines
SODA '10 Proceedings of the twenty-first annual ACM-SIAM symposium on Discrete Algorithms
Lower bound for envy-free and truthful makespan approximation on related machines
SAGT'11 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Algorithmic game theory
Truthful Approximation Schemes for Single-Parameter Agents
SIAM Journal on Computing
Fast monotone 3-approximation algorithm for scheduling related machines
ESA'05 Proceedings of the 13th annual European conference on Algorithms
Truthful approximation mechanisms for scheduling selfish related machines
STACS'05 Proceedings of the 22nd annual conference on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science
A monotone approximation algorithm for scheduling with precedence constraints
Operations Research Letters
Approximations and auctions for scheduling batches on related machines
Operations Research Letters
A lower bound of 1 + ϕ for truthful scheduling mechanisms
MFCS'07 Proceedings of the 32nd international conference on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science
Mechanism design for fractional scheduling on unrelated machines
ICALP'07 Proceedings of the 34th international conference on Automata, Languages and Programming
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We study “discrete optimization with a blindfold.” We are given an optimization problem such as finding the shortest path in a graph or balancing load on machines, but some of the relevant data, such as edge costs or machine speeds, is missing. There are various selfish economic agents who each know part of the data, and who are affected by the decisions we make. We can ask them to report the data, but they might lie if it is in their self-interest to do so. We aim to design truthful mechanisms: algorithms for solving our optimization problems that, with the help of monetary incentives, induce the agents to report the true data. We identify and address four major problems with the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism, the most famous general technique for designing truthful mechanisms. First, the VCG mechanism can be used only if we want to maximize the overall social welfare, e.g., minimize the cost to the agents. We develop other techniques for optimizing other types of objective functions. Second, even if our goal is to maximize the overall social welfare, the VCG mechanism may be computationally intractable because the underlying optimization problem is NP-hard. We investigate how to develop approximation algorithms that preserve the truth-inducing properties of the VCG mechanism. Third, even though the VCG mechanism can be used to minimize the total cost incurred by the agents, the amount the mechanism must pay to the agents can be significantly higher. We prove that in some natural cases, this is an inherent difficulty with truthful mechanisms, and is not peculiar to the VCG mechanism. Fourth, even though it is never in an agent's individual selfish interest to lie to the VCG mechanism, coalitions of agents can sometimes benefit by lying in a coordinated way. We study what types of coordination must occur for this type of cheating to be successful.