Envisioning and Enabling Sustainable Smart Markets

__Abstract__ Many of the world’s most urgent problems such as climate change, population growth, poverty, malnutrition and environmental degradation not only demand solutions but also require us to find more sustainable ways of living. Market mechanisms can be effective in solving large-scale resource allocation problems of this kind, but only if the market design reflects the social costs. The growth and spread of advanced information and communication technologies mean that new smart markets offer a way to achieve this and will become central to many areas of economic activity. However, the volumes of data and speed of transactions involved place a burden on human decisionmaking capabilities, and information systems can have a central role to play in helping to devise solutions – in particular, in developing intelligent software agents to provide decision support. This address looks at the challenges and opportunities involved for information systems researchers, and sets out an agenda for sustainable smart markets research, centered on collaborative approaches. It focuses on three overlapping areas: market and learning agent design; market evaluation using autonomous learning agents; and real-time decision support. Examples are included of current work on sustainable smart markets for electricity (smart grid) and for flowers (Dutch Flower Auctions).