Pith. sign in

REVIEW 3 major objections 4 minor 4 cited by

Incentivizing Desirable Effort Profiles in Strategic Classification: The Role of Causality and Uncertainty

T0 review · 3 major / 4 minor · reviewed 2026-08-08 · deepseek-v4-flash

Pith's one-line read A linear classifier steers strategic agents' effort toward desirable features exactly when those features win the contribution-per-cost ranking; uncertainty then turns optimal effort into a mean–variance tradeoff that avoids high-variance…

desk verdict The complete-information results are clean and worth keeping; the incomplete-information section rests on a false Gaussianity claim that leaves the paper's main advertised tractability results unsupported. read the letter →

arxiv 2502.06749 v1 pith:JYSDPRD3 submitted 2025-02-10 cs.GT cs.CYcs.LG

classification cs.GTcs.CYcs.LG MSC 91A8090C25
keywords strategicclassificationcausalgraphsbeta-desirabilitycontributionmatrixincompleteinformationGaussianpriorseffortprofilesconvexoptimization
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

This paper asks when a decision-maker who publishes a linear classifier can get self-interested agents to spend their effort on features the decision-maker actually wants changed, rather than on cheaper or easier-to-game ones. It models feature interdependencies through a causal graph, so effort on one feature propagates to others; the paper's central object is the contribution matrix $C$, which aggregates every directed path's weight, making the score change from effort $e$ equal to $(Ch_0)^\top e$ in the full-knowledge case. In that complete-information setting the paper pins down exactly when rational agents' optimal effort is $\beta$-desirable: for $\ell_1$ costs, when the best contribution-to-cost feature is desirable (Theorem 1), and for $p>1$, when desirable contributions dominate in the relevant norm comparison (Theorem 2). With Gaussian uncertainty over the classifier or the graph's edge weights, the agent's problem becomes convex and the optimal profile takes the semi-closed form $e^\star = \lambda^*(k_1 I + k_2 \Sigma_{Ch})^{-1} \mu_{Ch}$, meaning effort rises with expected contribution and falls with variance. The upshot for a designer is a concrete checklist for when incentives work, plus a warning: uncertainty can systematically push agents away from exactly the features the principal wants to encourage.

What carries the argument

The load-bearing object is the contribution matrix $C = \sum_{k=0}^{|F|} A^k$ of the acyclic causal graph, whose entry $C_{ij}$ sums the products of edge weights over all directed paths from feature $i$ to feature $j$; it converts an exogenous effort profile $e$ into net feature change $\Delta x = C^\top e$, so the classifier sees score change $(Ch)^\top e$. All of the paper's tractability results hinge on the distribution of $Ch$: in the complete-information case $Ch_0$ is a fixed vector and the ratios $(Ch_0)_f/c_f$ are the 'bang per buck' that determine the optimal profile; under partial uncertainty the assumption that $Ch$ is Gaussian rewrites the probability constraint as $\alpha - \mu_{Ch}^\top e - \Phi^{-1}(\delta)\,\|\Sigma_{Ch}^{1/2} e\|_2 \le 0$, a convex constraint whose KKT analysis yields the closed form $e^\star = \lambda^*(k_1 I + k_2 \Sigma_{Ch})^{-1}\mu_{Ch}$. The same Gaussian object supplies the feasibility boundary in Lemma 5, the diagonal-covariance closed form of Corollary 1, and the experimental behavior of $\beta$-desirability as uncertainty grows.

What would settle it

Run the agent's true optimization on a three-node chain $X_1 \to X_2 \to X_3$ with independent Gaussian edge weights $w_1, w_2$, a known classifier, and $\ell_2$ costs: the contribution of $X_3$ to the score contains the product $w_1 w_2$, so one can compare the true optimal effort (computed by sampling the product distribution) against the claimed formula $\lambda^*(k_1 I + k_2 \Sigma_{Ch})^{-1}\mu_{Ch}$ evaluated with the Gaussian moments; a discrepancy — or, at small $\delta$, non-convexity of the true feasible set — would show the closed form is an approximation, not an exact solution, for general causal graphs.

Watch

Extended reading notes

Core claim

The paper's central discovery is that causality turns strategic best-response into linear algebra: because net feature change is $C^\top e$, the effective incentive signal sent by a classifier is the vector $Ch_0$, the total contribution of each feature to the score along all causal paths. With this object the paper proves that under $\ell_1$ costs a rational agent invests in a single feature, the one maximizing $(Ch_0)_f / c_f$, so guaranteeing desirable behavior reduces to making the best bang-per-buck feature desirable; under $\ell_p$ costs with $p>1$ the optimal effort spreads across all contributing features with $e^\star_f \propto ((Ch_0)_f / c_f)^{1/(p-1)}$, and $\beta$-desirability holds when the desirable features' contributions dominate in the corresponding norm, e.g. $\|(Ch_0)_D\|_2 \ge (\beta/\sqrt{1-\beta^2})\|(Ch_0)_U\|_2$ for unit costs at $p=2$. The paper further shows that the set of classifiers inducing desirable effort is generally non-convex when more than one feature is desirable, that it becomes convex when the principal targets a single desirable feature or only bounds undesirable contribution, and that under partial Gaussian uncertainty the agent's chance constraint reduces to a convex inequality and the optimal effort becomes $e^\star = \lambda^*(k_1 I + k_2 \Sigma_{Ch})^{-1}\mu_{Ch}$ — so uncertainty acts like a ridge penalty that diverts effort from high-variance features. Experiments based on a cardiovascular-disease risk graph show agents investing in desirable, unobserved lifestyle features purely through causal propagation, with desirability decreasing in the level of uncertainty.

Load-bearing premise

The tractable incomplete-information results assume that the product $Ch$ of the classifier with the causal contribution matrix is Gaussian, which is guaranteed only when the classifier alone is uncertain or the graph is bipartite; for deeper causal graphs the contribution of a feature is a product of Gaussian edge weights and is not Gaussian, so the closed forms hold as approximations rather than exact characterizations.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

  • With $\ell_1$ costs, if a desirable feature offers the unique best contribution-to-cost ratio, no further design effort is needed: every best response is $\beta$-desirable for every $\beta \in (0,1]$.
  • With $\ell_p$ costs, $p>1$, the principal can certify desirable behavior in closed form by comparing the $\ell^{2/(p-1)}$-weighted norms of $(Ch_0)$ over desirable versus undesirable features; for unit costs and $p=2$ the condition is the $\ell_2$-norm comparison $\|(Ch_0)_D\|_2 \ge (\beta/\sqrt{1-\beta^2})\|(Ch_0)_U\|_2$.
  • Designing classifiers to induce desirable effort is generally non-convex and therefore hard, but convex and efficiently solvable when the principal targets exactly one desirable feature (for $p \in [1,3]$) or relaxes the goal to bounding undesirable contribution.
  • Under partial Gaussian uncertainty the agent's best response is a tractable convex program with solution $e^\star_f = \lambda^*(\mu_{Ch})_f / (k_1 + k_2 (\Sigma_{Ch})_f)$ in the diagonal case: effort increases with a feature's expected contribution and decreases with its variance, so variance concentrated on desirable features directly harms $\beta$-desirability.
  • In the cardiovascular case study, agents invest substantial effort in desirable lifestyle features even when the classifier puts zero weight on them, because those features causally drive the observed risk factors the classifier does use; raising classifier uncertainty or lowering the required pass probability $\delta$ degrades desirability, and beyond a threshold the agent's problem is infeasible

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • An implication the authors leave implicit: the closed form $e^\star = \lambda^*(k_1 I + k_2 \Sigma_{Ch})^{-1}\mu_{Ch}$ is structurally a ridge-type shrinkage, which suggests a design lever the paper does not develop — a principal can redirect effort not only by changing classifier weights but by deliberately shaping agents' uncertainty, for instance by publishing a simpler or more stable classifie
  • Because $Ch$ is a product of Gaussian edge weights along paths, the closed forms for graph uncertainty are exact only when every path has length one (e.g., bipartite graphs); for deeper DAGs the paper's Gaussian assumption is an approximation, and a natural testable extension is whether that approximation degrades gracefully in the small-variance regime or fails qualitatively in the tails of the p
  • A concrete extension with fairness implications: if different population groups hold priors with different variances, the same published classifier will induce group-specific effort profiles, so the $\beta$-desirability gap across groups is, in this model, a function of information asymmetry rather than of the classifier weights alone.
Share X Bluesky LinkedIn Reddit HN

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Referee Report

3 major / 4 minor

Summary. The paper studies strategic classification in a binary decision problem where a principal deploys a linear classifier and a cost-minimizing agent can exert effort on features embedded in a known DAG. Effort propagates along causal edges through a contribution matrix C, and the agent's objective is to pass the classifier with probability at least 1−δ. The authors introduce a notion of β-desirability to measure whether effort is concentrated on features the principal favors. Under complete information they characterize optimal effort profiles for ℓp costs (single-feature effort for p=1, proportional allocation for p>1), give sufficient conditions for β-desirable best responses, and analyze convexity of the classifier-design space. Under incomplete information, they model Gaussian priors over the classifier and/or edge weights and claim that partial uncertainty leads to a convex program with a closed-form optimal effort profile, while full uncertainty is non-convex. Numerical experiments on a cardiovascular disease dataset illustrate the behavior of β-desirability under classifier uncertainty.

Significance. The complete-information part is clean and potentially useful: the characterization of optimal effort under weighted ℓp costs, the β-desirability conditions, and the convexity results for single-desirable-feature design are coherent and the proofs check out. The paper also makes a good-faith effort to include proofs and a realistic experimental case study. However, the advertised core novelty is the incomplete-information analysis with uncertainty over the causal graph, and that part rests on a false Gaussianity assertion for Model 2. The results survive only when uncertainty is over the classifier (Model 1) or when the graph is bipartite, a much narrower scope than the paper claims. The feasibility characterization (Lemma 5) is also incorrect as stated. These are load-bearing issues, not presentation defects.

major comments (3)
  1. [§4.1, Eq. (10) and Eq. (11)] The claim that Ch is Gaussian under Model 2 is false for general DAGs. For example, take a chain 1→2→3 with independent Gaussian edge weights w12 and w23 and a deterministic classifier h0 = e3. Then (Ch0)_1 = w12·w23, a product of independent non-degenerate Gaussians, which is not Gaussian. Consequently the chance constraint cannot be rewritten as α − μ_Ch^T e − pδ·||Σ_Ch^{1/2} e||_2 ≤ 0, because (Ch)^T e is not Gaussian. This invalidates the reduction used in Lemma 4 (convexity), Lemma 5 (feasibility), Lemma 6 (ℓ1 multi-feature effort), Theorem 3 (ℓ2 closed form), and Corollary 1 (variance penalization) for Model 2 on general DAGs. Proposition 6 only handles bipartite graphs, and the paper does not scope the Section 4 results to Model 1 or to bipartite graphs. The paper's own discussion in §4.3 notes that non-diagonal Σ_Ch arises for Model 2 on non-bipartite graphs, but that observation is about covariance structure and does not repair the non-Gaussianity.
  2. [Appendix C.3, Lemma 5] The feasibility condition in Lemma 5 is wrong as stated. Take α > 0 and μ_Ch = 0 with Σ_Ch positive definite. For the regime δ < 1/2 used in Lemma 4, pδ = Φ^{-1}(δ) is negative, so the constraint becomes α − pδ·||Σ_Ch^{1/2} e||_2 ≤ 0, i.e., α + |pδ|·||Σ_Ch^{1/2} e||_2 ≤ 0, which is impossible for every e. Hence the problem is infeasible for all δ < 1/2. The lemma's formula Φ^{-1}(−||Σ_Ch^{-1/2} μ_Ch||_2) evaluates to Φ^{-1}(0) = −∞ in this case, so the lemma incorrectly declares feasibility for every real δ. The proof's derivation around the case d* = Σ_Ch^{-1} μ_Ch also breaks down precisely when μ_Ch = 0, since the Cauchy-Schwarz equality direction is vacuous.
  3. [Appendix C.2, Proposition 5] The proof of Proposition 5 is not a rigorous mathematical proof. It presents a Monte Carlo plot of f(e) = P[(ωh)e ≥ α] for independent standard normals ω and h and asserts that the function is 'clearly' not concave. An empirical plot does not establish non-convexity of the feasible set or of the optimization problem; it does not rule out, for instance, that the feasible set is convex in some other representation, and it provides no certificate for the claimed counterexample. A rigorous counterexample, or an analytic argument showing a specific non-convex feasible set, is needed to support the negative tractability claim for Model 3.
minor comments (4)
  1. [§4, first paragraph] The text refers to 'Lemma ??' in the introduction to Section 4; the cross-reference should be to Lemma 4.
  2. [Theorem 2] The displayed condition in Theorem 2 is typeset in a way that is hard to read: the expression 'βp 1 − β2' does not clearly indicate whether the intended factor is β·p, β_p, or β/√(1−β²). The surrounding discussion and the p=2 reduction should be checked for consistency.
  3. [Figure 5] Figure 5 has no axis labels and is used as the sole evidence for Proposition 5; beyond the mathematical issue raised above, the figure should at least specify what quantity is plotted and how the Monte Carlo estimate was obtained.
  4. [§4.3] The discussion of what it means for Σ_Ch to be non-diagonal is helpful, but it should explicitly acknowledge that when G is non-bipartite and uncertainty is over edge weights, the random vector Ch itself is generally not jointly Gaussian, so the tractability claims of §4.1 do not apply in that case.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 0.0 of 10

No significant circularity: the core derivation chain is self-contained and self-citations are background only.

full rationale

The derivation chain is self-contained. In the complete-information setting, Lemma 1 and Lemma 2 are obtained by solving the agent's explicit convex program (via LP corner-point/duality arguments and KKT conditions), and Theorems 1-2 simply translate those optimal-effort characterizations into β-desirability conditions using Definition 3; no fitted quantity is later relabeled as a prediction. In the incomplete-information setting, the convex reformulation (Lemma 4), feasibility threshold (Lemma 5), ℓ1 structure (Lemma 6), and ℓ2 characterization (Theorem 3) all follow from the paper's stated Gaussian chance-constraint model plus standard convex optimization, and the experiments in Section 5 directly evaluate the derived formulas rather than fitting parameters and re-predicting the fitted values. Self-citations (Bechavod et al. 2021/2022, Cohen et al. 2024, the authors' own prior work) appear only in related-work discussion and are not used as the load-bearing justification of any theorem, so they raise no circularity concern. Two genuine weaknesses exist but they are not circularity: (i) Section 4.1's assertion that 'Ch is a Gaussian random variable' under Model 2 is false for general DAGs containing paths of length at least two, since C is then a product of Gaussian edge weights; this undermines the support of Lemmas 4-6 and Theorem 3 in that regime but is a mathematical-correctness gap rather than a reduction of a result to its own input. (ii) In Appendix C.5, the coefficients in Theorem 3 are defined as k1 = 1/||e*||2 and k2 = -λ*pδ/||Σ^{1/2}e*||2, so the displayed formula is a fixed-point/KKT restatement rather than a fully explicit closed form; again this is an incompleteness in the strength of the claimed characterization, not a circular derivation that assumes the conclusion. No step in the paper equates a prediction with a fitted input, imports a uniqueness theorem from the authors' prior work, or smuggles an ansatz in through citation.

Assumptions & free parameters 0 free parameters · 5 assumptions · 0 invented entities

The theoretical core introduces no fitted constants; the only numeric inputs are the model primitives (cf, α, δ, β, priors) and experimental parameter σ, which is swept rather than fitted. The central proofs rely on the listed structural assumptions about the causal graph, agent information, and cost functions. The most fragile item is the Gaussianity of C h under edge-weight uncertainty, which is asserted, not proven, and generally false.

assumptions (5)
  • domain assumption The causal graph G is a directed acyclic graph; each edge has a linear weight and contribution accumulates along paths as C = Σ_{k=0}^{|F|} A^k.
    Section 2.1, Definitions 1-2 and Observation 1. Standard in causal strategic classification but restricts the model to linear additive effects.
  • domain assumption The agent always knows the topology of the causal graph; incomplete information is only over edge weights and/or classifier parameters, with Gaussian priors.
    Section 2.2, 'The agent is always assumed to know the topology...' This makes the uncertainty analysis tractable but is a strong information assumption.
  • ad hoc to paper Under Model 2 (uncertainty over edge weights), the total contribution vector C h is Gaussian.
    Section 4.1, 'the overall uncertainty is also Gaussian: i.e., Ch is a Gaussian random variable.' This is not true for general DAGs because entries of C are products of independent Gaussian weights; it is load-bearing for Lemma 4, Lemma 5, Lemma 6, and Theorem 3.
  • domain assumption Agent costs are weighted ℓp-norm costs with cf > 0, as in Eq. (2), and the agent minimizes cost subject to passing with probability at least 1-δ (Eq. (4)).
    Section 2.2. The form of cost drives the qualitative difference between ℓ1 and p>1 behavior; other cost structures may give different effort profiles.
  • standard math For Theorem 3 and Corollary 1, k1 I + k2 Σ_Ch is invertible and Σ_Ch is positive definite where needed; Corollary 1 further assumes Σ_Ch diagonal (Assumption 1).
    Theorem 3 proof (Appendix C.5) and Assumption 1. These are technical conditions for closed-form solutions; the diagonal case is justified for bipartite graphs under Model 2 (Proposition 6), but not generally.

how reviews work

0 comments
Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of Incentivizing Desirable Effort Profiles in Strategic Classification: The Role of Causality and Uncertainty." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/JYSDPRD3

@misc{pith2026250206749,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: Incentivizing Desirable Effort Profiles in Strategic Classification: The Role of Causality and Uncertainty},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/JYSDPRD3}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2502.06749}
}
read the original abstract

We study strategic classification in binary decision-making settings where agents can modify their features in order to improve their classification outcomes. Importantly, our work considers the causal structure across different features, acknowledging that effort in a given feature may affect other features. The main goal of our work is to understand \emph{when and how much agent effort is invested towards desirable features}, and how this is influenced by the deployed classifier, the causal structure of the agent's features, their ability to modify them, and the information available to the agent about the classifier and the feature causal graph. In the complete information case, when agents know the classifier and the causal structure of the problem, we derive conditions ensuring that rational agents focus on features favored by the principal. We show that designing classifiers to induce desirable behavior is generally non-convex, though tractable in special cases. We also extend our analysis to settings where agents have incomplete information about the classifier or the causal graph. While optimal effort selection is again a non-convex problem under general uncertainty, we highlight special cases of partial uncertainty where this selection problem becomes tractable. Our results indicate that uncertainty drives agents to favor features with higher expected importance and lower variance, potentially misaligning with principal preferences. Finally, numerical experiments based on a cardiovascular disease risk study illustrate how to incentivize desirable modifications under uncertainty.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2502.06749 by the authors.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Consider a simple causal graph G with |F| = 3. Feature 1 directly affects features 2 and 3 and feature 2 directly affects feature 3. Feature 1 also indirectly affects feature 3 through the path 1 → 2 → 3. The contribution matrix C captures both of these effects. 2.3 Incentivizing Effort towards Desirable Features We are interested in the properties of the effort profile that the agent exerts as a result of best￾resp… view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Causal graph of features which affect the output of interest “Risk of Cardio-vascular [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p018_2.png] view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Plot of how β varies with σ at different levels of δ and for different classifiers. larger space of feasible effort profiles to choose from. Since all features have equal costs, her best response is to invest more in desirable features because they have a higher net contribution which means that she can now “pass” the classifier while incurring a lower cost. Trade-offs between σ and δ. The failure probability δ is c… view at source ↗
Figures from the paper (2 more)
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Plots of how β varies with δ for different parameter combinations. while clearly demonstrating computational challenges of finding such classifiers. We also identify special settings and relaxations which can render the design problem computationally tractable. ii) We …
Figure 5
Figure 5. Figure 5: Plot of f(e) with α = 1 Now there are 2 cases: ∇g(e) = 0 has a solution eˆ: Clearly, ˆe ̸= 0 because the gradient is not defined at e = 0. In that case, ˆe satisfies: −pδ · ΣCheˆ ∥Σ 1/2 Ch eˆ∥2 = µCh. Now, ˆe must be a global minimizer of g because g(·) is a convex fun…

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Linear Strategic Classification with Endogenous Improvements

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 7.0 of 10

    In a linear strategic-classification model where manipulation can genuinely improve outcomes, the optimal strategic classifier is a parallel shift of the Bayes boundary, and it is a provably better proxy for the impro...

  2. A Continuous-Time Analysis of Smoothed Matrix-Polar Spectral Gradient Flows for Muon-Type Optimization

    math.OC 2026-08 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

    A smoothed matrix-polar spectral gradient flow for Muon-type optimization is globally convergent with O(1/T), O(1/t), and exponential rates, and its local advantage over the Frobenius direction is characterized by the...

  3. The Disparate Effects of Partial Information in Bayesian Strategic Learning

    cs.GT 2025-05 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    For Bayesian strategic agents, score and utility disparities between cost-differentiated groups remain bounded and can be minimized at intermediate transparency, whereas naive agents produce unbounded utility disparit...

  4. Desirable Effort Fairness and Optimality Trade-offs in Strategic Learning

    cs.GT 2025-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Constraining a strategic classifier to keep desirable-effort incentives fair between two groups costs the principal an explicit accuracy or welfare loss bounded by the fairness tolerance beta.

Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

36 extracted references · 27 canonical work pages · cited by 4 Pith papers

  1. [1]

    The strategic perceptron

    Saba Ahmadi, Hedyeh Beyhaghi, Avrim Blum, and Keziah Naggita. The strategic perceptron. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, pages 6--25, 2021

  2. [2]

    On classification of strategic agents who can both game and improve

    Saba Ahmadi, Hedyeh Beyhaghi, Avrim Blum, and Keziah Naggita. On classification of strategic agents who can both game and improve. In 3rd Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing, 2022

  3. [3]

    The economics of moral hazard: further comment

    Kenneth J Arrow. The economics of moral hazard: further comment. The American economic review, 58 0 (3): 0 537--539, 1968

  4. [4]

    Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care

    Kenneth J Arrow. Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. In Uncertainty in economics, pages 345--375. Elsevier, 1978

  5. [5]

    Gaming helps! learning from strategic interactions in natural dynamics

    Yahav Bechavod, Katrina Ligett, Steven Wu, and Juba Ziani. Gaming helps! learning from strategic interactions in natural dynamics. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, pages 1234--1242. PMLR, 2021

  6. [6]

    Information discrepancy in strategic learning

    Yahav Bechavod, Chara Podimata, Steven Wu, and Juba Ziani. Information discrepancy in strategic learning. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 1691--1715. PMLR, 2022

  7. [7]

    Introduction to linear optimization

    Dimitris Bertsimas and John Tsitsiklis. Introduction to linear optimization. 1997

  8. [8]

    The role of randomness and noise in strategic classification

    Mark Braverman and Sumegha Garg. The role of randomness and noise in strategic classification. In 1st Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing, 2020

Show all 36 references
  1. [9]

    Learning strategy-aware linear classifiers

    Yiling Chen, Yang Liu, and Chara Podimata. Learning strategy-aware linear classifiers. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 33: 0 15265--15276, 2020

  2. [10]

    Bayesian strategic classification, 2024

    Lee Cohen, Saeed Sharifi-Malvajerdi, Kevin Stangl, Ali Vakilian, and Juba Ziani. Bayesian strategic classification, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.08758

  3. [11]

    Strategic classification from revealed preferences

    Jinshuo Dong, Aaron Roth, Zachary Schutzman, Bo Waggoner, and Zhiwei Steven Wu. Strategic classification from revealed preferences. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, pages 55--70, 2018

  4. [12]

    The double-edged sword of behavioral responses in strategic classification: Theory and user studies

    Raman Ebrahimi, Kristen Vaccaro, and Parinaz Naghizadeh. The double-edged sword of behavioral responses in strategic classification: Theory and user studies. arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.18066, 2024

  5. [13]

    Price of privacy in the keynesian beauty contest

    Hadi Elzayn and Zachary Schutzman. Price of privacy in the keynesian beauty contest. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, pages 845--863, 2019

  6. [14]

    Group-fair classification with strategic agents

    Andrew Estornell, Sanmay Das, Yang Liu, and Yevgeniy Vorobeychik. Group-fair classification with strategic agents. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, pages 389--399, 2023

  7. [15]

    Strategic classification in the dark

    Ganesh Ghalme, Vineet Nair, Itay Eilat, Inbal Talgam-Cohen, and Nir Rosenfeld. Strategic classification in the dark. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 3672--3681. PMLR, 2021

  8. [16]

    An analysis of the principal-agent problem

    Sanford J Grossman and Oliver D Hart. An analysis of the principal-agent problem. In Foundations of Insurance Economics: Readings in Economics and Finance, pages 302--340. Springer, 1992

  9. [17]

    Strategic classification

    Moritz Hardt, Nimrod Megiddo, Christos Papadimitriou, and Mary Wootters. Strategic classification. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science, pages 111--122, 2016

  10. [18]

    Stateful strategic regression

    Keegan Harris, Hoda Heidari, and Steven Z Wu. Stateful strategic regression. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 34: 0 28728--28741, 2021

  11. [19]

    Constructing causal pathways for premature cardiovascular disease mortality using directed acyclic graphs with integrating evidence synthesis and expert knowledge

    Wan Shakira Rodzlan Hasani, Kamarul Imran Musa, Xin Wee Chen, and Kueh Yee Cheng. Constructing causal pathways for premature cardiovascular disease mortality using directed acyclic graphs with integrating evidence synthesis and expert knowledge. Scientific Reports, 14 0 (1): 0...

  12. [20]

    Causal strategic classification: A tale of two shifts

    Guy Horowitz and Nir Rosenfeld. Causal strategic classification: A tale of two shifts. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 13233--13253. PMLR, 2023

  13. [21]

    The disparate effects of strategic manipulation

    Lily Hu, Nicole Immorlica, and Jennifer Wortman Vaughan. The disparate effects of strategic manipulation. In Proceedings of the Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, pages 259--268, 2019

  14. [22]

    Causal machine learning: A survey and open problems

    Jean Kaddour, Aengus Lynch, Qi Liu, Matt J Kusner, and Ricardo Silva. Causal machine learning: A survey and open problems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.15475, 2022

  15. [23]

    How do classifiers induce agents to invest effort strategically? ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC), 8 0 (4): 0 1--23, 2020

    Jon Kleinberg and Manish Raghavan. How do classifiers induce agents to invest effort strategically? ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC), 8 0 (4): 0 1--23, 2020

  16. [24]

    Information elicitation mechanisms for statistical estimation

    Yuqing Kong, Grant Schoenebeck, Biaoshuai Tao, and Fang-Yi Yu. Information elicitation mechanisms for statistical estimation. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, volume 34, pages 2095--2102, 2020

  17. [25]

    The theory of incentives: the principal-agent model

    Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort. The theory of incentives: the principal-agent model. In The theory of incentives. Princeton university press, 2009

  18. [26]

    Strategic classification with unknown user manipulations

    Tosca Lechner, Ruth Urner, and Shai Ben-David. Strategic classification with unknown user manipulations. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 18714--18732. PMLR, 2023

  19. [27]

    The delphi method

    Harold A Linstone, Murray Turoff, et al. The delphi method. Addison-Wesley Reading, MA, 1975

  20. [28]

    Strategic classification is causal modeling in disguise

    John Miller, Smitha Milli, and Moritz Hardt. Strategic classification is causal modeling in disguise. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 6917--6926. PMLR, 2020

  21. [29]

    The social cost of strategic classification

    Smitha Milli, John Miller, Anca D Dragan, and Moritz Hardt. The social cost of strategic classification. In Proceedings of the Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, pages 230--239, 2019

  22. [30]

    The economics of moral hazard: comment

    Mark V Pauly. The economics of moral hazard: comment. The american economic review, pages 531--537, 1968

  23. [31]

    Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference

    Judea Pearl. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge University Press, 2000

  24. [32]

    The economic theory of agency: The principal's problem

    Stephen A Ross. The economic theory of agency: The principal's problem. The American economic review, 63 0 (2): 0 134--139, 1973

  25. [33]

    Incentives in principal-agent relationships

    David E M Sappington. Incentives in principal-agent relationships. Journal of economic Perspectives, 5 0 (2): 0 45--66, 1991

  26. [34]

    Causal strategic linear regression

    Yonadav Shavit, Benjamin Edelman, and Brian Axelrod. Causal strategic linear regression. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 8676--8686. PMLR, 2020

  27. [35]

    Pac-learning for strategic classification

    Ravi Sundaram, Anil Vullikanti, Haifeng Xu, and Fan Yao. Pac-learning for strategic classification. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 24 0 (192): 0 1--38, 2023

  28. [36]

    Fairness interventions as (dis) incentives for strategic manipulation

    Xueru Zhang, Mohammad Mahdi Khalili, Kun Jin, Parinaz Naghizadeh, and Mingyan Liu. Fairness interventions as (dis) incentives for strategic manipulation. In International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 26239--26264. PMLR, 2022

Pith tools

Reviewed August 8, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.