Prize in Game Theory and Computer Science to Edelman, Ostrovsky and Schwarz, and Varian

Here's the prize announcement:

Prize in Game Theory and Computer Science of the Game Theory Society

in Honour of Ehud Kalai, endowed by Yoav Shoham

Following the Call for Nominations, the 2013 Prize is awarded in equal parts to Benjamin Edelman, Michael Ostrovsky, Michael Schwarz, and Hal R. Varian for their papers

Benjamin Edelman, Michael Ostrovsky, and Michael Schwarz, "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review 97, pages 242-259, 2007,

and

Hal R. Varian, "Position Auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization 25, pages 1163-1178, 2007,

for their fundamental analysis of Online Advertisement Auctions.

The Prize committee, appointed by Roger Myerson as President of the Game Theory Society, consisted in 2013 of Paul W. Goldberg, Kevin Leyton-Brown, Éva Tardos, and Bernhard von Stengel.

In their report to the President, they stated their reasons for selecting this work as follows, referring to the papers as "EOS" and "Varian":

A very significant body of research at the interface of game theory and computer science concerns the design of automated mechanisms for economic transactions, which typically take place on the internet. A prime example are advertisements that search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo! place next to the results of internet searches for a given keyword. When a user clicks on such an ad, the search engine receives money from the advertiser. The payment is determined by an auction mechanism that computes the available advertisement "slots" to the bids which are dynamically provided by the bidders for each keyword search.

EOS and Varian (independently) analyzed an auction format known as the "generalized second price auction", a term coined by EOS, which is now used by the major search engines. Their work is of unparalleled theoretical and practical influence. At the time of this writing, it has attracted over 1,400 combined citations (about 800 for EOS and 600 for Varian) and the two articles are by far the most influential papers in the area.

The design of market mechanisms that are implemented algorithmically represents a most fruitful interaction of game theory and computer science. The work of EOS and Varian has spawned research - and, also significantly, attractive jobs for economic and computing theorists - to an extent that they clearly deserve the Prize.

Congratulations to the winners! They will present their work at the occasion of the award on July 17, 2013, at the Workshop on Computational Game Theory in Stony Brook, New York.

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Call for nominations - Prize in Game Theory and Computer Science

(mailed to GTS members by Roger Myerson on 25 April 2013)

The Prize in Game Theory and Computer Science of the Game Theory Society was established in 2008 by a donation from Yoav Shoham in recognition of Ehud Kalai's role in promoting the connection of the two research areas. The last time the Prize was awarded at the Third World Congress of the Society in 2008 in Evanston. This time, the Prize will in 2013 be awarded at the Workshop on Computational Game Theory in Stony Brook, New York (July 16-18, 2013).

The Prize will be awarded to the person (or persons) who have published the best paper at the interface of game theory and computer science in the last decade. Preference will be given to candidates of age 45 or less at the time of the award, but this is not an absolute constraint. The amount of the Prize will be USD 2,500 plus travel expenses of up to USD 2,500 to attend the scientific event where the Prize is awarded.

The Game Theory Society invites nominations for the Prize. Each nomination should include a full copy of the paper (in pdf format) plus an extended abstract, not exceeding two pages, that explains the nature and importance of the contribution.

Nominations should be emailed to the Society's Secretary-Treasurer, Federico Valenciano (at federico.valenciano@ehu.es ) by 15 May 2013. The selection will be made by a committee appointed by the President, and the result will be announced in June 2013.