Research & Publications Office to host seminar on ‘Unambiguous Efficiency of Random Allocations’ on 27 October
The talk will be delivered by Prof. Vikram Manjunath, University of Ottawa
21 October, 2025, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) will host a seminar on, ‘Unambiguous Efficiency of Random Allocations’, to be led by Prof. Vikram Manjunath, University of Ottawa (Economics area), at 4 pm on 27th October 2025.
Abstract: When allocating indivisible objects via lottery, planners often use ordinal mechanisms, which elicit agents' rankings of objects rather than their full preferences over lotteries. In such an ordinal informational environment, planners cannot differentiate between utility profiles that induce the same ranking of objects. The researchers propose the criterion of unambiguous efficiency: regardless of how each agent extends their preferences over objects to lotteries, the allocation is Pareto efficient with respect to the extended preferences. The researchers compare this with the predominant efficiency criterion used for ordinal mechanisms. As an application to mechanism design, they characterize all efficient and strategy-proof mechanisms satisfying certain regularity conditions.
Speaker Profile: Prof. Vikram Manjunath is a distinguished scholar in microeconomic theory, specializing in mechanism design, resource allocation and matching theory. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Rochester and holds a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. His research has been published widely in leading Economics journals, including the Theoretical Economics, Journal of Economic Theory and Games and Economic Behavior. Prof. Manjunath’s work has received consistent recognition and support from prominent funding bodies, notably through multiple Insight Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He also serves as an Associate Editor for Mathematical Social Sciences.
Webpage Link: https://vikram-manjunath.bitbucket.io/
Research & Publications Office to host seminar on ‘Unambiguous Efficiency of Random Allocations’ on 27 October
The talk will be delivered by Prof. Vikram Manjunath, University of Ottawa
21 October, 2025, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) will host a seminar on, ‘Unambiguous Efficiency of Random Allocations’, to be led by Prof. Vikram Manjunath, University of Ottawa (Economics area), at 4 pm on 27th October 2025.
Abstract: When allocating indivisible objects via lottery, planners often use ordinal mechanisms, which elicit agents' rankings of objects rather than their full preferences over lotteries. In such an ordinal informational environment, planners cannot differentiate between utility profiles that induce the same ranking of objects. The researchers propose the criterion of unambiguous efficiency: regardless of how each agent extends their preferences over objects to lotteries, the allocation is Pareto efficient with respect to the extended preferences. The researchers compare this with the predominant efficiency criterion used for ordinal mechanisms. As an application to mechanism design, they characterize all efficient and strategy-proof mechanisms satisfying certain regularity conditions.
Speaker Profile: Prof. Vikram Manjunath is a distinguished scholar in microeconomic theory, specializing in mechanism design, resource allocation and matching theory. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Rochester and holds a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. His research has been published widely in leading Economics journals, including the Theoretical Economics, Journal of Economic Theory and Games and Economic Behavior. Prof. Manjunath’s work has received consistent recognition and support from prominent funding bodies, notably through multiple Insight Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He also serves as an Associate Editor for Mathematical Social Sciences.
Webpage Link: https://vikram-manjunath.bitbucket.io/