Mechanism Design

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10 papers in the last four weeks, up 150% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

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Congestion-Based Slot Pricing in a Railway Auction Game
Jul 2, 2026Bill Roungas, Sebastiaan MeijerMechanism Design Game-Playing Agents
Panteion University, Athens, Greece · Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, Athens, Greece · KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
What's a Credit Worth? A Market Framework for Attribution-Aware Compensation in Generative Music
Jul 1, 2026Luyang Zhang, Xirui Jiang, Junwei Deng +3Mechanism Design Data Valuation
Carnegie Mellon University · University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Pure Nash Equilibria under the Affine Mechanism: A Potential Game of Exaggeration
Jun 27, 2026Jason Jisen Li, Young Wu, Yancheng Zhu +2Nash Equilibrium Mechanism Design
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Wear-Clearance-Impact Coupling in the Jansen Linkage: A Gait-Durability-Optimized Design Slows Joint Loosening
Jun 23, 2026Jichao WangMechanism Design Robot Locomotion
Independent Researcher
Durability-Aware Multi-Objective Optimization of the Jansen Linkage: Trading Gait Quality Against Joint Wear
Jun 20, 2026Jichao WangMechanism Design Robot Locomotion
Independent Researcher
Dynamics, stability, and energy efficiency of an energy-recycling rimless wheel with spring-clutch legs
Jun 20, 2026Tongchen Lin, Yanqiu Zheng, Chuhan Zhang +3Legged Robotics Mechanism Design
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Shantou, China. · Department of Applied Electronics, Faculty of Advanced Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan. · Tongchen Lin, Chuhan Zhang, Ruigang Chen, Yizhar Or, and Mingyi Liu: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
SCOPE-FL: A Strategy-proof Chain-based Optimal pareto efficient Federated Learning System
Jun 16, 2026Seyed Salar Ghazi, Kaiwen Zhang, Mehdi feizi +1Hierarchical Federated Learning Mechanism Design
Department of Software and IT Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montréal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada · Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G4, Canada
Gaming-Resistant Insurance Contracts for Autonomous AI Agents: Strategy-Proof Toll Mechanism Design
Jun 15, 2026Hao-Hsuan ChenMechanism Design AI Risk Management
Friction Characterization of a Cable-Driven Differential Actuation System for Lower-Limb Exoskeletons
Jun 14, 2026Alberto Maria Nobili, Fabio Salsedo, Alessandro FilippeschiMechanism Design Robotics
Institute of Mechanical Intelligence and with the Department of Excellence in Robotics and AI, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy · Wearable Robotics s.r.l., Pisa, Italy
Repeated Bilateral Trade: The Quest for Fairness
Jun 13, 2026François Bachoc, Roberto Colomboni, Emilie KaufmannMechanism Design Algorithmic Fairness
University of Lille Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) Lille, France · School of Mathematics University of Bristol Fry Building, Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1UG, United Kingdom · Univ. Lille, CNRS, Inria, Centrale Lille, UMR 9189-CRIStAL F-59000 Lille, France
Market Design for AI: Beyond the Copyright Binary
Jun 10, 2026Yan Dai, Maryam Farboodi, Negin Golrezaei +1Mechanism Design AI Governance
MIT Operations Research Center. · MIT Sloan School of Management, NBER and CEPR. · NBER and CEPR. +2
R-APS: Compositional Reasoning and In-Context Meta-Learning for Constrained Design via Reflective Adversarial Pareto Search
Jun 3, 2026João Pedro Gandarela, Thiago Rios, Stefan Menzel +1Mechanism Design Meta-Learning
Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland · Honda Research Institute Europe, Germany +2
A No-Regret Framework for Adaptive Incentive Design
Jun 1, 2026Georgios Vasileiou, Lantian Zhang, Silun ZhangMechanism Design Game Theory
Department of Mathematics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 10044, Sweden.
Partial Fairness Awareness: Belief-Guided Strategic Mechanism for Strategic Agents
May 30, 2026Xinpeng Lv, Chunyuan Zheng, Yunxin Mao +8Strategic Classification Mechanism Design
National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, China · Peking University, Beijing, China · Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China +2
Civilizational Metamaterials: Engineering Coordination Under Capability Gradients and Structural Turbulence
May 29, 2026David OrbanMulti-Agent Coordination Mechanism Design
Independent Researcher
Social welfare optimisation under institutional reward and punishment
May 29, 2026Van An Nguyen, Vuong Khang Huynh, Huu Loi Bui +8Social Dilemmas Mechanism Design
Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), Vietnam · 2Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Vietnam · School of Computing, Engineering and Digital Technologies, Teesside University,2026 United Kingdom +1
Comparing Market Mechanism Efficiencies
May 29, 2026Irene AldridgeMechanism Design Quantitative Finance
Healthcare Mechanisms from Policy-as-Code Search under Strategic Provider Response
May 29, 2026Zihan Wang, Xiang Xu, Hongyuan Zha +1Mechanism Design LLM-Based Program Synthesis
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen · Tongji University
SwarmHarness: Skill-Based Task Routing via Decentralized Incentive-Aligned AI Agent Networks
May 27, 2026Edwin JoseMechanism Design Multi-Agent Orchestration
Department of Computer Science Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA
Greening AI Inference with Accuracy and Latency-aware User Incentives
May 26, 2026Vasilios A. Siris, Adamantia Stamou, George D. Stamoulis +2Mechanism Design Energy-Efficient ML
Department of Informatics, School of Information Sciences and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece · Huawei Heisenberg Research Center, Munich, Germany
A Bioinspired Underwater Robot with a Latch-Mediated Soft Bistable Mechanism
May 26, 2026Chongze Bi, Wenjie Wu, Zonghao Zuo +1Mechanism Design Underwater Robotics
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University
AgentSociety: Incentivizing Agentic Social Intelligence
May 25, 2026Aditya Vema Reddy Kesari, Krishna Reddy KesariMechanism Design Multi-Agent Collaboration
IIT Bombay, India · Amazon, US
Rejoinder: The ICML 2023 Ranking Experiment: Examining Author Self-Assessment in ML/AI Peer Review
May 24, 2026Buxin Su, Jiayao Zhang, Natalie Collina +6Mechanism Design Scholarly Peer Review
*University of Pennsylvania. · †University of Wisconsin–Madison. · ‡Associate Chair of ICML 2023. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. +2
Truthful Online Preference Aggregation for LLM Fine-Tuning in Mobile Crowdsourcing
May 22, 2026Shugang Hao, Lingjie DuanMechanism Design LLM Fine-Tuning
Singapore Wireless Innovation Centre, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, 487372 Singapore · Internet of Things Thrust and the Artificial Intelligence Thrust, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou 511455, China
Multi-Dimensional Matching in Market Design
May 19, 2026Irene AldridgeMechanism Design
Irene Aldridge
Reservation Based Smart Parking Management
May 17, 2026Giacomo Cabri, Manuela Montangero, Filippo Muzzini +1Mechanism Design Intelligent Transportation Systems
dept. Physics, Informatics and Mathematics University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Modena, Italy
SSTL: Self-Sensing Tendon Loop for Hysteresis Modeling and Compensation in Tendon-Sheath Mechanisms
May 16, 2026Myeongbo Park, Junhyun Park, Ihsan Ullah +2Robotic Control Mechanism Design
LERA: LLM-Enhanced RAG for Ad Auction in Generative Chatbots
May 15, 2026Haoran Sun, Xinrui Song, Xinyu Zhang +7Retrieval-Augmented Generation Mechanism Design
Peking University · Shandong University · Alibaba Group
Collaborating in Multi-Armed Bandits with Strategic Agents
May 13, 2026Idan Barnea, Ofir Schlisselberg, Yishay MansourMulti-Armed Bandits Mechanism Design
Tel Aviv University · Google Research
Profit Maximization in Bilateral Trade against a Smooth Adversary
May 12, 2026Simone Di Gregorio, Paul Dütting, Federico Fusco +1Mechanism Design Minimax Regret
Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Sapienza University of Rome · Google Research · Department of Computer Science Aarhus University

Jul 2, 2026, cs.MAJ/K move · Enter open · S save

Congestion-Based Slot Pricing in a Railway Auction Game

Bill Roungas, Sebastiaan Meijer

Panteion University, Athens, Greece · Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, Athens, Greece · KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Mechanism Design Game-Playing Agents Repeated Games Dynamic Pricing Online Resource Allocation

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We present a multi-agent system for studying the allocation of discrete, congested resources among heterogeneous strategic agents, motivated by the problem of railway slot allocation under deregulation. Multiple operator-agents, differing in size and capacity, interact through a shared auction mechanism over repeated rounds under time-constrained decision-making. The mechanism combines a congestion-based base price that increases with aggregate demand with an asymmetric corrective adjustment that penalises the agent requesting the most slots and rewards the agent requesting the fewest, and is designed to mitigate strategic dominance by large agents while preserving transparency and congestion sensitivity. We formulate the interaction as a repeated game with incomplete information and implement the system as a real-time, web-based multi-agent environment in which human participants control individual agents and observe live marginal-cost and competitor feedback. We report exploratory observations from two structured sessions with domain experts acting as operator-agents. The congestion mechanism responds to aggregate demand as designed and the corrective incentives are actively triggered, but agents representing large operators persist with high-request strategies despite the penalty, suggesting that corrective pricing is necessary but not sufficient to neutralise strategic dominance in this multi-agent setting. A post-session debrief indicates that participants' decisions were driven by the assumed agent role rather than personal disposition, and provides qualitative support for strategic motives, such as preserving market presence and raising rivals' costs, operating alongside short-term profit maximisation. We discuss implications for multi-agent mechanism design under asymmetric budgets and outline directions for analytical validation and larger-scale multi-agent experiments.

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