Workshop at EC 2026 · Rome

Foundations of Data Economics

ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 2026)
Rome, Italy
Plenary Talks · Spotlight Sessions · Poster Session · Open Discussion

About the Workshop

The goal of this workshop is to bring together students, postdocs, and researchers from AI, economics, operations research, and computer science who are interested in the emerging area of data economics.


We are planning a program with plenary talks, spotlight sessions, a poster session, and an open discussion on important research directions. The workshop aims to catalyze new collaborations and chart foundational questions in this rapidly developing field.

Understanding Data as an Asset

Modeling data value — complementarities, diminishing returns, and its rivalrous vs. non-rivalrous nature under privacy constraints and statistical validity.

Incentives & Mechanisms

Designing mechanisms to reward data contributions, compensate for acquisition and privacy costs, and encourage high-quality sharing while accounting for externalities.

Data Pricing

Stable pricing strategies under different market structures — competition, oligopoly, monopoly — accounting for data's unique economic properties.

Equilibrium in Data Markets

Understanding stable behavior of buyers, sellers, and platforms (e.g., Snowflake, AWS) offering storage and ML services; incentives and market dynamics.

Plenary Speakers

DB

Dirk Bergemann

Yale University
Plenary Talk 1
AM

Ali Makhdoumi

Duke University
Plenary Talk 2
JP

Jacopo Perego

Columbia University
Plenary Talk 3
JH

Jason Hartline

Northwestern University
Plenary Talk 4

Schedule

Morning Plenary Talk 1
Dirk Bergemann — Yale University
35 + 5 min
Plenary Talk 2
Ali Makhdoumi — Duke University
35 + 5 min
Spotlight Talks
Selected contributed presentations
10 min each
Coffee Break
Networking
10 min
Afternoon Plenary Talk 3
Jacopo Perego — Columbia University
35 + 5 min
Plenary Talk 4
Jason Hartline — Northwestern University
35 + 5 min
Poster Session
Contributed posters & open discussion

Organizers

Bhaskar Ray Chaudhury

Bhaskar Ray Chaudhury

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jugal Garg

Jugal Garg

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ruta Mehta

Ruta Mehta

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Call for Contributions

We seek contributions broadly on data economics for poster and spotlight presentation. We welcome theoretical, algorithmic, and empirical work on topics including data valuation, pricing, market design, incentive mechanisms, and equilibrium in data markets. Contributions link coming soon.

Submit a Contribution