NSF Grant: Rapid Response Electronic Markets for Time Sensitive Goods

The Smith School has received a major grant from the Information Technology Research Program of the National Science Foundation. The project is titled Rapid Response Electronic Markets for Time Sensitive Goods. The Smith School pulled together a broad cross disciplinary team for the proposal. Smith School faculty involved include G. "Anand" Anandalingam, the principal investigator, Mike Ball, Hank Lucas, Louiqa Raschid, and S. "Raghu" Raghavan. Team members from across campus are Larry Ausubel and Peter Cramton from the Department of Economics and V.S. Subramanian from the Department of Computer Science. The corporate collaborators for this project include Avendra, GE Global Exchange and IBM.

The range of time sensitive goods that are of potential interest to the research team is quite varied. Examples include tickets to sporting and entertainment events, landing time slots at an airport and telecommunications bandwidth or electricity available over a limited time range. The research will focus on electronic markets for these goods, with particular attention to highly constrained situations where buyers and sellers have little time to make decisions as deadlines for finalizing a deal approach. Included will be an investigation of marketplaces supported by the use of wireless technologies. The research will address the design of market structures and mechanisms for time sensitive goods, design of data delivery systems, research on market software agents and an empirical analysis of existing markets.

The diverse team of investigators will use their unique experience and expertise in studying these vital issues. Anand Anandalingam has broad expe rience in economics and optimization including work on electronic markets design. Larry Ausubel's expertise lies in game theory, auction theory and bargaining theory. He has been involved in the implementation of several auction mechanisms including the FCC Spectrum auctions as well as other spectrum , energy and environmental auctions around the world. Mike Ball brings expertise in optimization and supply chain management. He has had recent experience with the development of air traffic slot exchange mechanisms. Henry Lucas has carried out extensive work in the field of information systems and electronic commerce with particular emphasis empirical studies of organizations. V. S. Subrahmanian will contribute to the project with his knowledge and experience in the area of software agents.

The grant amount of two million dollars will be received over a period of three years. This is the largest grant originating from and awarded to the Smith School. This comes at a time when the Smith School is getting increased recognition nation wide for its excellence in research.