Mechanism Design for Social Good

Society is run by algorithms, and in many cases, these algorithms interact with participants who have a stake in the outcome. The participants may behave strategically in an attempt to "game the system," resulting in unexpected or suboptimal outcomes. In order to accurately predict an algorithm's outcome and quality, we must design it to be robust to strategic manipulation. This is the subject of algorithmic mechanism design, which borrows ideas from game theory and economics to design robust algorithms. In this talk, I will show how results from the theoretical foundations of algorithmic mechanism design can be used to solve problems of societal concern. I will focus on applications in carbon license allocations, health insurance markets, and online labor markets.