Papers

TL;DR for Seasoned Authors

  • Papers submitted to EC’21 must select one of four methodological tracks and up to two content/substantive areas. Like in EC’20, the tracks differ along methodological dimensions and are orthogonal to content areas. Track definitions are the same as in EC’20. A list of content areas can be found below.
  • EC’21 is continuing the forward-to-journal option as in previous years. We are happy to announce the addition of Econometrica to our list of partner journals.
  • EC’21 is coordinating submissions with the 6th World Congress of the Game Theory Society. Authors can choose to have their papers, and anonymized reviews, forwarded to GAMES in the event of a rejection from EC.
  • EC’21 will be held either virtually or in a hybrid format. Authors will have the opportunity to decide whether to present their work in person or remotely.
  • Authors of papers that contain empirical results are strongly encouraged to submit their code and data as supplementary material.

Background

Since 1999 the ACM Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation (SIGecom) has sponsored the leading scientific conference on advances in theory, empirics, and applications at the interface of economics and computation. The 22nd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC’21) will feature invited speakers, a highlight of papers from other conferences and journals, a technical program of submitted paper presentations and posters, workshops, and tutorials. EC’21 will be held from July 19 through July 23, 2021.

We solicit paper submissions for presentation in the technical program. Submissions must be registered by February 10, 2021 at 11:59 pm EST. The deadline for full paper submissions is February 12, 2021 at 11:59 pm EST.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Design of economic mechanisms: algorithmic mechanism design; market design; matching; auctions; revenue maximization; pricing; fair division; computational social choice; privacy and ethics.
  • Game theory: equilibrium computation; price of anarchy; learning in games.
  • Information elicitation and generation: prediction markets; recommender, reputation and trust systems; social learning; data markets.
  • Behavioral models: behavioral game theory and bounded rationality; decision theory; computational social science; agent-based modeling.
  • Online systems: online advertising; electronic commerce; economics of cloud computing; social networks; crowdsourcing; ridesharing and transportation; labor markets; cryptocurrencies; industrial organization.
  • Methodological developments: machine learning; econometrics; data mining.

Timetable for Authors

  • February 10, 2021 (11:59 pm EST): Paper registration deadline
  • February 12, 2021 (11:59 pm EST): Paper submission deadline
  • April 13, 2021: Reviews sent to authors for feedback
  • April 15, 2021: Author responses due
  • May 7, 2021: Paper accept/reject notifications
  • July 19-23, 2021: Conference technical program

Submission Instructions

Submit a Paper

Format. The body of the submission may be up to 18 pages, excluding the title page and bibliography. In addition, an appendix of arbitrary length may be included only for the review process (i.e., an appendix will not appear if the paper is published). This appendix will only be read at the discretion of the reviewers. The body of the submission should contain a clear presentation of the contributions of the paper, including a discussion of prior work and an outline of the key technical ideas and methods used to achieve the main claims. The submission as a whole should include all of the ideas necessary for an expert to verify fully the central claims in the paper. Submitted papers will be evaluated on significance of the contribution, originality, relation to prior research, technical quality, and exposition.

The submission should be typeset using 11-point or larger fonts, in a single-column, single-space (between lines) format with ample spacing throughout and 1-inch margins all around. Submissions deviating from these guidelines will be rejected without consideration of their merits.

Style files. Authors are required to use the EC’21 LaTex style files to format submissions.

Tracks. EC’21 has four technical tracks. In contrast to previous editions of EC, the tracks differ by the types of contributions they emphasize; they are orthogonal to content areas. Papers submitted to each track will be evaluated primarily according to criteria specific to the track and the reviewing process will be overseen by the corresponding Track Chair.

  • Theory: Typical papers in this track make progress on existing theoretical problems, propose new ones, or introduce significant new techniques that could be applied more broadly. Track chair: Jason Hartline.
  • Applied Modeling: Typical papers in this track propose and analyze novel models that capture real-world phenomena, or provide fresh perspectives on previously studied applied problems. Track chair: Vahideh Manshadi.
  • AI and Computation: Typical papers in this track rely on computer-aided techniques to tackle complex problems (including, for example, problems in multi-agent systems, equilibrium computation, reinforcement learning, etc.) that were previously beyond reach. Track chair: Sebastien Lahaie.
  • Empirics: Typical papers in this track draw significant insights from real or synthetic data, through access to new data sources or experiments, or through novel analysis of existing data sources. Track chair: Greg Lewis.

Areas. Each submission must select up to two content areas from the following list of areas. The reviewing process for papers within each area will be overseen by the Area Chairs assigned to that area.

  • Equilibria in games
  • Dynamics in games
  • Mechanism design
  • Market design & matching markets
  • Markets and market equilibrium
  • Fair division
  • Social choice & voting theory
  • Privacy, algorithmic fairness, social good, and ethics
  • Information elicitation
  • Behavioral economics and behavioral modeling
  • Online platforms and applications
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • Econometrics, ML, and data science
  • Social networks, social learning, information cascades, network diffusion

Submission of code and data. In the interest of reproducibility, authors of papers that include empirical results are strongly encouraged to submit their code and data. Such material should be archived as a single zip file and submitted as supplementary material.

Double-blind review process. Author identity is anonymized for SPC and PC members throughout the review process. As usual, SPC and PC member identity is also anonymized before reviews are disseminated to authors. Because the review process is double blind, authors must take measures to ensure that their identity is not easily revealed from the submission itself. Authors should refer to their prior work in a neutral manner (i.e., instead of saying “We showed” say “XYZ et al. showed”). To add the submission number, one must first submit a paper without a number, see what number was assigned, and then revise the submission to include this number. It is acceptable to submit work that has been presented in public or has appeared on arXiv, provided the submission itself is anonymized. PC members will be allowed to declare a conflict of interest with authors as well as with specific papers. Author information is accessible to the conference chairs, but not to area chairs, track chairs, or program committee members.

One page extended abstract option. To accommodate the publishing traditions of different fields, authors of accepted papers can ask that only a one-page abstract of the paper appear in the proceedings, along with a URL pointing to the full paper. Authors should guarantee the link to be reliable for at least two years. This option is available to accommodate subsequent publication in journals that would not consider results that have been published in preliminary form in a conference proceedings. Such papers must be submitted electronically and formatted just like papers submitted for full-text publication.

Simultaneous submission not allowed. Simultaneous submission of papers to another conference with published proceedings is not allowed. Results previously published or presented at another archival conference prior to EC, or published at a journal prior to the submission deadline to EC, will not be considered. Simultaneous submission of papers to a journal is allowed only if the author intends to publish the paper as a one-page abstract in EC. Papers that are accepted and appear as a one-page abstract can be subsequently submitted for publication in a journal but may not be submitted to any other conference that has a published proceedings. See below for an exception regarding GAMES.

Forward to journal. Authors of accepted papers will have the option to have reviews forwarded to a journal of their choice. Our partner journals are:

Authors of accepted papers can choose this option and specify at most one journal at the time of final paper submission. They may then submit a journal version of their paper to the chosen journal, with a deadline of August 15, 2021. No action is required at the time of submission. The cover letter should specify that the submission is part of the EC forward-to-journal process. Upon submission to the journal, the EC reviews will be forwarded, along with reviewer identities, to the contact editor at that journal.

For consideration in Games and Economic Behavior, Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, Management Science, Marketing Science, Naval Research Logistics, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, Theoretical Economics, or the Review of Economic Studies, authors of accepted papers must also select the one-page extended abstract option for the proceedings version, explained above. Other journals may require additional content beyond the EC proceedings version; it is the responsibility of authors to ensure that the version submitted to a journal conforms with any journal-specific expectations regarding the prior proceedings version. A journal’s participation in the EC forward to journal’s option does not mean that other forms of prior publication is accepted.

We emphasize that the ultimate disposition of the paper is within the editorial discretion of each journal, and in particular there is no guarantee of acceptance if the forward-to-journal option is elected. However, we do anticipate that this process should result in a faster decision from the journal.

Note that submissions forwarded to journals can instead opt for the ACM TEAC special issue dedicated to EC’21. Invitations to publish in the special issue will be made prior to August 15, 2021, the deadline for forwarding to a journal.

Feature at INFORMS. Authors can indicate if they wish to be considered for presenting their accepted EC’21 submissions in the special sessions at the 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting, organized and sponsored by the INFORMS Auctions and Market Design (AMD) Section. To be considered for this fast-track selection process conducted by the AMD cluster chairs, the authors will need to provide a short non-technical abstract  (at most 500 characters) by May 10, 2021, and indicate whether an intended presenter is an INFORMS job market candidate.

Resubmission to GAMES. Authors can also indicate if they wish to have their rejected EC’21 submissions evaluated for presentation at the 6th World Congress of the Game Theory Society (GAMES), which is co-located with EC’21. Anonymized reviews of the submissions will, in that case, be forwarded to the GAMES organizers. This option is made possible through a special arrangement with the GAMES organizers, and is meant to accommodate authors who are interested in both EC’21 and GAMES but are worried about the possibility of being rejected from EC’21 and missing out on both events.

Conflict of interest. Authors will have the opportunity to declare conflicts of interest (COIs) with area chairs, track chairs, and PC members. This must be done separately for each submission. Declaring COIs prevents the specified SPC/PC member(s) from reviewing a paper, thereby constraining the matching process and so potentially negatively impacting review quality. For this reason, COIs should not be declared automatically based on a prior relationship (e.g., coauthor, friend, colleague in a different department at the same institution, etc.). Instead, authors should declare CoIs only with respect to those SPC/PC members who may have difficulty being impartial in reviewing the submitted paper.

Questions?

Contact the PC chairs at ec2021chairs@gmail.com