This project is developing methods and tools that allow people to design more robust electronic markets, focusing initially on auction mechanisms. This work is led by Mark Klein, Chris Dellarocas and Peyman Faratin, and is funded by Neptune Inc.
Electronic markets in open systems are susceptible to a wide range of failure types due to buggy, fraudulent or malicious agents (e.g. colluding bidders, denial of service attacks), untrustworthy intermediaries (e.g. lying auctioneers), unreliable infrastructures (e.g. delayed bids) and so on.
This project is developing tools, methodologies and knowledge bases to help designers of electronic market anticipate and prepare for different possible failure modes.
A Knowledge-Based Methodology for Designing Robust Electronic Markets ROMA Working Paper ROMA-WP-2001-02. Cambridge MA USA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2001. (Under review at the 2001 ACM Conference on eCommerce).