Nearly-Optimal Bandit Learning in Stackelberg Games with Side Information

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Balcan, Maria-Florina, Bernasconi, Martino, Castiglioni, Matteo, Celli, Andrea, Harris, Keegan, Wu, Zhiwei Steven
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Balcan, Maria-Florina
Bernasconi, Martino
Castiglioni, Matteo
Celli, Andrea
Harris, Keegan
Wu, Zhiwei Steven
author_facet Balcan, Maria-Florina
Bernasconi, Martino
Castiglioni, Matteo
Celli, Andrea
Harris, Keegan
Wu, Zhiwei Steven
contents We study the problem of online learning in Stackelberg games with side information between a leader and a sequence of followers. In every round the leader observes contextual information and commits to a mixed strategy, after which the follower best-responds. We provide learning algorithms for the leader which achieve $O(T^{1/2})$ regret under bandit feedback, an improvement from the previously best-known rates of $O(T^{2/3})$. Our algorithms rely on a reduction to linear contextual bandits in the utility space: In each round, a linear contextual bandit algorithm recommends a utility vector, which our algorithm inverts to determine the leader's mixed strategy. We extend our algorithms to the setting in which the leader's utility function is unknown, and also apply it to the problems of bidding in second-price auctions with side information and online Bayesian persuasion with public and private states. Finally, we observe that our algorithms empirically outperform previous results on numerical simulations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_00204
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Nearly-Optimal Bandit Learning in Stackelberg Games with Side Information
Balcan, Maria-Florina
Bernasconi, Martino
Castiglioni, Matteo
Celli, Andrea
Harris, Keegan
Wu, Zhiwei Steven
Machine Learning
Computer Science and Game Theory
We study the problem of online learning in Stackelberg games with side information between a leader and a sequence of followers. In every round the leader observes contextual information and commits to a mixed strategy, after which the follower best-responds. We provide learning algorithms for the leader which achieve $O(T^{1/2})$ regret under bandit feedback, an improvement from the previously best-known rates of $O(T^{2/3})$. Our algorithms rely on a reduction to linear contextual bandits in the utility space: In each round, a linear contextual bandit algorithm recommends a utility vector, which our algorithm inverts to determine the leader's mixed strategy. We extend our algorithms to the setting in which the leader's utility function is unknown, and also apply it to the problems of bidding in second-price auctions with side information and online Bayesian persuasion with public and private states. Finally, we observe that our algorithms empirically outperform previous results on numerical simulations.
title Nearly-Optimal Bandit Learning in Stackelberg Games with Side Information
topic Machine Learning
Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00204