With the advent of the internet economy, there has been a remarkable convergence of lines of inquiry between the fields of economic theory and computer science. The emergence of new markets mediated by information technology has spurred new research on how strategic agents interact with complex institutions. These new markets have also focused attention on how best to design institutions in the face of limited information and limited computational resources. The disciplines of game theory and complexity theory provide complementary approaches to understanding these issues.
This conference brought together leading researchers from these fields to share and discuss exciting new developments. Starting from economists’ familiar ground of game theory, auctions, and market design, presenters pointed that when designing real-world auctions and markets, it’s critical to include a level of detail and complexity that economists usually must minimize to solve their models. They showed how bringing in heuristics used for optimization problems in computing science can enrich models and solve such problems with far less computing time and power.
The broader goal of the conference was to facilitate a dialogue on how best to advance the common objective of understanding strategic behavior and institutional design in complex environments.