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On the Communication Complexity of Multilateral Trading: Extended Report

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Abstract.

We study the complexity of a multilateral negotiation framework, where autonomous agents agree on a sequence of deals to exchange sets of discrete resources in order to both further their own goals and to achieve a distribution of resources that is socially optimal. When analysing such a framework, we can distinguish different aspects of complexity: How many deals are required to reach an optimal allocation of resources? How many communicative exchanges are required to agree on one such deal? How complex a communication language do we require? And finally, how complex is the reasoning task faced by each agent?

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Correspondence to Ulle Endriss.

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Endriss, U., Maudet, N. On the Communication Complexity of Multilateral Trading: Extended Report. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 11, 91–107 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-005-1080-2

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