Recent years have seen the growth of a new field at the intersection of computer science and economics: algorithmic economics. So far there were few opportunities for students to receive a concentrated exposure to this field. This first-ever summer school on algorithmic economics, to be held at Carnegie Mellon University in Summer 2012, will bring together roughly fifty Ph.D. and advanced undergraduate students from computer science and the social sciences; and top researchers in algorithmic economics, who will give concentrated classes on their areas of expertise. The summer school will cover areas such as mechanism design, equilibrium computation, social choice, social networks, market design, and fair division. The proposed summer school will promote understanding within algorithmic economics, as well as foster collaboration between computer scientists and social scientists. It will emphasize emerging areas in algorithmic economics and help increase interest in these areas, thereby leading to conceptual and technical advances. The summer school will also serve as a basis for future summer schools on algorithmic economics.
The last two decades have seen the growth of a new field at the intersection of computer science and economic, known as "algorithmic economics". Despite massive interest in terms of established conferences as well as numerous ad hoc workshops, there has never before been a summer school devoted to algorithmic economics. This award supported the first summer school on algorithmic economics, which took place at Carnegie Mellon University on August 6-10, 2012. It included nine mini-courses by distinguished lecturers from MIT, Cornell, Northwestern, Caltech, Duke, CMU, and Rice. Topics included mechanism design, market design, game theory, auctions, fair division, and social choice. The summer school was attended by roughly 50 US-based graduate students, who were selected for merit and diversity from a pool of more than 160 applicants. The expenses of admitted US-based students were fully covered by the award. A majority were computer scientists, with a large minority coming from economics, operations research, math, and related disciplines. The summer school achieved its goals, which were: - Educate students who are already working in the field by exposing them to the breadth and depth of work that is being done by others. - Increase interest in the field by exposing junior PhD students and advanced undergraduates to important research questions. - Disseminate knowledge worldwide by making videos of lectures freely available online. The summer school's website is online at: www.cs.cmu.edu/~arielpro/summer.
