ORIE Colloquium on 2/2/2012 - Yashodhan Kanoria: Bargaining Dynamics in Exchange Networks

ORIE Colloquium: Bargaining Dynamics in Exchange Networks Thursday, February 2 at 3:00pm Frank H.T. Rhodes Hall, 253 Speaker: Yashodhan Kanoria Stanford University Social and economic networks are becoming increasingly important, both on the internet and otherwise. Agents in these networks possess limited information, and interact chiefly with their local neighborhood. Yet these networks have proven remarkably effective at the aggregation of “information” at massive scales. It is of great scientific and commercial interest to build realistic models for phenomena in networks of agents. Exchange networks model the behavior of a set of players who need to reach pairwise agreements for mutual benefit, as in the labor market, the housing market and the 'market' for social relationships. A crucial but little understood aspect of exchange networks is the dynamics of bargaining between players. We present a natural model of the bargaining dynamics in general networks, and show rapid convergence to certain socially optimal outcomes. We also describe ongoing internet-based experiments on bargaining in networks.