On the approximation guarantee of obviously strategyproof mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper investigates the limits of obviously strategyproof mechanisms, providing tight bounds on their approximation guarantees for scheduling problems and characterizing optimal mechanisms for set systems, advancing the design paradigms.

Contribution

It offers the first tight bounds on OSP mechanisms' approximation guarantees and introduces new paradigms for their design using cycle monotonicity techniques.

Findings

Tight approximation bounds for OSP mechanisms in scheduling.

Characterization of optimal OSP mechanisms for set systems.

Extension of cycle monotonicity to OSP mechanism design.

Abstract

Catering to the incentives of people with limited rationality is a challenging research direction that requires novel paradigms to design mechanisms and approximation algorithms. Obviously strategyproof (OSP) mechanisms have recently emerged as the concept of interest to this research agenda. However, the majority of the literature in the area has either highlighted the shortcomings of OSP or focused on the "right" definition rather than on the construction of these mechanisms. We here give the first set of tight results on the approximation guarantee of OSP mechanisms for scheduling related machines and a characterization of optimal OSP mechanisms for set system problems. By extending the well-known cycle monotonicity technique, we are able to concentrate on the algorithmic component of OSP mechanisms and provide some novel paradigms for their design.