We consider a multiarmed bandit problem where the expected reward of each arm is a linear function of an unknown scalar with a prior distribution. The objective is to choose a sequence of arms that maximizes the expected total (or discounted total) reward. We demonstrate the effectiveness of a...

Two very different contractual structures are commonly observed inservice industries with congestion effects: service level guarantees(SLGs) and best effort (BE) service. We analyze the impact of thesecontractual agreements on market outcomes in oligopolistic industries.First, we consider a...

This thesis addresses a problem at the nexus of engineering, computer science, and economics: in large scale, decentralized systems, how can we efficiently allocate scarce resources among competing interests? On one hand, constraints are imposed on the system designer by the inherent...