Keller Colloquium in Computing and Mathematical Sciences

Classically in economics, the study of how information influences strategic interactions has been largely descriptive. A more recent line of work, which is becoming increasingly relevant in today's information economy, examines the associated prescriptive question: what information should a system designer communicate to self-interested agents in order to steer their collective behavior towards a desirable outcome. This task, often referred to as persuasion or information structure design, is fundamentally algorithmic in nature, and therefore naturally lends itself to analysis through the computational lens. The computational perspective not only lays the groundwork for application, but also provides structural insights into the underlying economic models. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the field, and present two vignettes from the work in my group on this topic. I will also outline the state of the art, current and future applications, and challenges ahead.