Mechanism Design for Task Procurement with Flexible Quality of Service
OA Location
Author(s)
Gerding, Enrico
Larson, Kate
Rogers, Alex
Jennings, Nick
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
In this paper, we consider the problem where an agent wishes to complete a single computational task, but lacks the required resources. Instead, it must contract self-interested service providers, who are able to flexibly manipulate the quality of service they deliver, in order to maximise their own utility. We extend an existing model to allow for multiple such service providers to be contracted for the same task, and derive optimal task procurement mechanisms in the setting where the agent has full knowledge of the cost functions of these service providers (considering both simultaneous and sequential procurement). We then extend these results to the incomplete information setting where the agent must elicit cost information from the service providers, and we characterise a family of incentive-compatible and individually-rational mechanisms. We show empirically that sequential procurement always generates greater utility for the agent compared to simultaneous procurement, and that over a range of settings, contracting multiple providers is preferable to contracting just one.
Editor(s)
Kowalczyk, R
Vo, QB
Maamar, Z
Huhns, M
Date Issued
2009
Citation
2009, pp.12-23
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
12
End Page
23
Identifier
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271160/
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Computer Science, Hardware & Architecture
Computer Science, Software Engineering
Computer Science, Theory & Methods
Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing
08 Information And Computing Sciences
Notes
Chapter: 1