In open, dynamic multi-agent systems, agents may form short-term ad-hoc groups, such as coalitions, in order to meet their goals. Trust and reputation are crucial concepts in these environments, as agents must rely on their peers to perform as expected, and learn to avoid untrustworthy partners. However, ad-hoc groups introduce issues which impede the formation of trust relationships. For examp...

Trust is viewed as a computational construct capable of being explicitly studied and modeled. Although articulated as a (functional) property of individual agents, the collective effect of events influencing (and being influenced by) trust judgments can impact organizational behavior. In this paper we summarize our work on agent trust and explore a current study on trust, cooperativity, and ben...

This paper extends the concept of trust modeling within a multi-agent environment. Trust modeling often focuses on identifying the appropriate trust level for the other agents in the environment and then using these levels to determine how to interact with each agent. However, this type of modeling does not account for sneaky agents who are willing to cooperate when the stakes are low and take ...

Fair division methods offer guarantees to agents of the proportional size or quality of their share in a division of a resource (cake). These guarantees come with a price. Standard fair division methods (or “cake cutting” algorithms) do not find efficient allocations (not Pareto optimal). The lack of efficiency of these methods makes them less attractive for solving multi-agent resource and tas...

Establishing trust amongst agents is of central importance to the development of well-functioning multi-agent systems. For example, the anonymity of transactions on the Internet can lead to inefficiencies; e.g., a seller on eBay failing to ship a good as promised, or a user free-riding on a file-sharing network. Trust (or reputation) mechanisms can help by aggregating and sharing trust informat...

We examine a setup where two agents allocate fixed budget between public goods in areas. The may be biased to one area, which is their private information. Without communication, the funds are allocated inefficiently, resulting gaps and duplication good provision. Direct communication ineffective cannot resolve coordination failure even when potential biases negligible. Coordination can improve...