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Poster

Generalized Principal-Agent Problem with a Learning Agent

Tao Lin · Yiling Chen

Hall 3 + Hall 2B #413
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Sat 26 Apr midnight PDT — 2:30 a.m. PDT

Abstract: Generalized principal-agent problems, including Stackelberg games, contract design, and Bayesian persuasion, are a class of economic problems where an agent best responds to a principal's committed strategy. We study repeated generalized principal-agent problems under the assumption that the principal does not have commitment power and the agent uses algorithms to learn to respond to the principal. We reduce this problem to a one-shot generalized principal-agent problem where the agent approximately best responds. Using this reduction, we show that: (1) if the agent uses contextual no-regret learning algorithms with regret Reg(T)Reg(T), then the principal can guarantee utility at least UΘ(Reg(T)T)UΘ(Reg(T)T), where UU is the principal's optimal utility in the classic model with a best-responding agent.(2) If the agent uses contextual no-swap-regret learning algorithms with swap-regret SReg(T)SReg(T), then the principal cannot obtain utility more than U+O(SReg(T)T)U+O(SReg(T)T). But (3) if the agent uses mean-based learning algorithms (which can be no-regret but not no-swap-regret), then the principal can sometimes do significantly better than UU.These results not only refine previous results in Stackelberg games and contract design, but also lead to new results for Bayesian persuasion with a learning agent and all generalized principal-agent problems where the agent does not have private information.

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