Overview

The research of Prof. Brandt's group addresess a variety of topics at the intersection of computer science, mathematics, and economic theory with a particular focus on social choice theory and game theory. Both areas have seen a resurgence of interest sparked by recent developments in the computer science community as well as the emergence and the growing ubiquity of the Internet, which have led to vibrant new interdisciplinary research areas known as computational social choice and algorithmic game theory.

Social choice theory, a multi-disciplinary area with contributions from economics, mathematics, political science, philosophy, and computer science, is concerned with the formal analysis and design of methods for aggregating the preferences of multiple agents. Typical real-life applications include voting as well as coalition formation, matching, and resource allocation. Our research group focusses on the axiomatic and algorithmic investigation of set-valued and probabilistic aggregation procedures.
Game theory is the mathematical study of strategic behavior in interactive decision making environments, in which the utility of each agent not only depends on his own decisions but also on those of other agents. A central concern of game theory is the development and analysis of solution concepts, such as Nash equilibrium, the Shapley value, or the core. Our group focusses on the formal properties of solution concepts—computational and non-computational—in various classes of games.

Theses, Publications

Team Members

• Prof. Dr. Felix Brandt
• Chris Dong
• Fabian Frank
• Matthias Greger
• René Romen
• Alexander Schlenga

Former Members

• Prof. Haris Aziz, Ph.D.
• Dr. Martin Bullinger
• Prof. Dr. Florian Brandl
• Prof. Dr. Markus Brill
• Dr. Felix Fischer
• Dr. Christian Geist
• Dr. Paul Harrenstein
• Dr. Johannes Hofbauer
• Dr. Patrick Lederer
• Dr. Evangelia Pyrga
• Christian Saile
• Dr. Hans Georg Seedig
• Prof. Troels Bjerre Sørensen, Ph.D.
• Christian Stricker
• Prof. Dr. Anaëlle Wilczynski

Projects

• An Axiomatic and Computational Study of Probabilistic Social Choice (DFG, 2021-)
• Collective Choice Lotteries - Dealing with Randomization in Voting, Matching, and Allocation (DFG Reinhart Koselleck Project, 2017-)
• An Axiomatic and Computational Study of Probabilistic Social Choice (DFG, 2016-)
• Preferences over Sets in Coalition Formation and Strategic Voting (DFG, 2011-2015)
• Algorithmische Grundlagen der Social-Choice-Theorie (DFG, 2011-2015)
• Algorithmic Game Theory (DFG Heisenberg Professorship, 2010-2015)
• Computational Foundations of Social Choice (ESF collaborative research project, 2008-2011)
• Preference Aggregation in Multiagent Systems (DFG Emmy Noether research project, 2005-2011)

Teaching

• Algorithmic Game Theory (Lecture & tutorials)
• Computational Social Choice (Lecture & tutorials)
• Economics and Computation (Seminar)
• Multiagent Systems (Seminar)
• Markets, Algorithms, Incentives, and Networks (Seminar)