Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason

Price Prediction Strategies for Market-Based Scheduling (Download full paper)

MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. Osepayshvili, Anna Reeves, Daniel M. Wellman, Michael P.

Published on: June, 2004

Abstract: In a market-based scheduling mechanism, the allocation of time-specific resources to tasks is governed by a competitive bidding process. Agents bidding for multiple, separately allocated time slots face the risk that they will succeed in obtaining only part of their requirement, incurring expenses for potentially worthless slots. We investigate the use of price prediction strategies to manage such risk. Given an uncertain price forecast, agents follow simple rules for choosing whether and on which time slots to bid. We find that employing price predictions can indeed improve performance over a straightforward baseline in some settings. Using an empirical game-theoretic methodology, we establish Nash equilibrium profiles for restricted strategy sets. This allows us to con- firm the stability of price-predicting strategies, and measure overall efficiency. We further experiment with variant strategies to analyze the source of prediction's power, demonstrate the existence of self-confirming predictions, and compare the performance of alternative prediction methods.

Some Economics of Market-Based Distributed Scheduling (Download full paper)

MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. Walsh, William E. Wellman, Michael P. Wurman, Peter

Published on: May, 1998

Abstract: Market mechanisms solve distributed scheduling problems by allocating the scheduled resources according to market prices. We model distributed scheduling as a discrete resource allocation problem, and demonstrate the applicability of economic analysis to this framework. Drawing on results from the literature, we discuss the existence of equilibrium prices for some general classes of scheduling problems, and the quality of equilibrium solutions. We then present two protocols for implementing market solutions, and analyze their computational and economic properties.