Ali Makhdoumi
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Ali Makhdoumi

Ali Makhdoumi

Associate Professor
Duke University
Fuqua School of Business · Decision Sciences
Computer Science (secondary)

I received a BSc in Electrical Engineering and a BSc in Mathematics from Sharif University of Technology. Before joining Fuqua, I received my PhD in EECS from LIDS at MIT. I was lucky to be advised by Asuman Ozdaglar and Daron Acemoglu.

My research interests include optimization, game theory, networks, and learning with applications to market design, data markets, and privacy.

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Address: W315, 100 Fuqua Drive, Durham, NC

Working Papers

List of working papers and manuscripts under review.

Optimal Mechanism Design with Post-Allocation Signal
With Saeed Alaei, Ali Daei Naby, and Azarakhsh Malekian
Working paper, 2026
Transforming Transformers: Content Generation with Advertiser Incentives under RoS Constraints
With Saeed Alaei and Azarakhsh Malekian
Working paper, 2026
Dynamic Learning and Optimal Advertising Mechanism for LLM Platforms
With Saeed Alaei and Azarakhsh Malekian
Working paper, 2026
Clearing Multi-Unit Markets with Simple Pricing
With Xinchang Wang and Sasa Pekec
Working paper, 2026
Incentivizing Data Collaboration: A Mechanism Design Approach
With Saeed Alaei, Ali Daei Naby, and Azarakhsh Malekian
Working paper, 2025
Mechanism Design with Post-Allocation Inspection and Exclusion Penalties
With Xuanjie Li and Sasa Pekec
Working paper, 2025
Approximately Optimal Mechanism for Multiunit Demand Buyers with Post-Allocation Inspection
With Xuanjie Li and Alex Belloni
Accepted: ACM EC 2025 (extended abstract) · Working paper, 2025
On Three-Layer Data Markets
With Alireza Fallah, Michael I. Jordan, Azarakhsh Malekian
R&R: Quantitative Economics, 2025
The Limits of Price Discrimination Under Privacy Constraints
With Alireza Fallah, Michael I. Jordan, Azarakhsh Malekian
Working paper, 2024
The Feedback Loop of Statistical Discrimination
With Jackie Baek
Major Revision: Management Science, 2025
How Good Are Privacy Guarantees? Platform Architecture and Violation of User Privacy
With Daron Acemoglu, Alireza Fallah, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Major Revision: Mathematics of Operations Research, 2025 · WINE 2023
Bridging Central and Local Differential Privacy in Data Acquisition Mechanisms
With Alireza Fallah, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Major Revision: Management Science, 2024 · NeurIPS 2022

Published Papers

Journal publications.

A Model of Behavioral Manipulation
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, and Asuman Ozdaglar
American Economic Review: Insights, 2025
Multi-Item Order Fulfillment Revisited: LP Formulation and Prophet Inequality
With Ayoub Amil and Yehua Wei
Management Science, 2025
Revenue Maximization Under Unknown Private Values With Non-Obligatory Inspection
With Saeed Alaei and Azarakhsh Malekian
Operations Research, 2024
Optimal Auction Design with Deferred Inspection and Reward
With Alexandre Belloni, Saeed Alaei, and Azarakhsh Malekian
Operations Research, 2024
Optimal and Differentially Private Data Acquisition: Central and Local Mechanisms
With Alireza Fallah, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Operations Research, 2023
Optimal Subscription Planning for Digital Goods
With Saeed Alaei and Azarakhsh Malekian
Operations Research, 2023
Testing, Voluntary Social Distancing and the Spread of an Infection
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, and Asuman Ozdaglar
Operations Research, 2023
Providing Data Samples for Free
With Kimon Drakopoulos
Management Science, 2022
Revenue-Sharing Allocation Strategies for Two-Sided Media Platforms
With Sasa Pekec, Saeed Alaei, and Azarakhsh Malekian
Management Science, 2022
Learning From Reviews: The Selection Effect and the Speed of Learning
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Econometrica, 2022
Too Much Data: Prices and Inefficiencies in Data Markets
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
AEJ: Microeconomics, 2021
Maximizing Sequence-Submodular Functions and its Application to Online Advertising
With Saeed Alaei and Azarakhsh Malekian
Management Science, 2020
Informational Braess' Paradox: The Effect of Information on Traffic Congestion
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Operations Research, 2018
Privacy-Constrained Network Formation
With Daron Acemoglu, Azarakhsh Malekian, Asuman Ozdaglar
Games and Economic Behavior, 2017
Convergence Rate of Distributed ADMM over Networks
With Asuman Ozdaglar
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2017
Principal Inertia Components and Applications
With Flavio Calmon, Muriel Médard, Mayank Varia, Mark Christiansen, Ken Duffy
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2017
Network Maximal Correlation
With Soheil Feizi, Ken Duffy, Manolis Kellis, Muriel Médard
IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, 2017

Refereed Conference Papers

List of refereed conference publications.

Deterministic Refund Mechanisms
S. Alaei, S. Chawla, Z. Huang, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian
SAGT, 2025
Approximately Optimal Mechanism for Multiunit Demand Buyers with Post-Allocation Inspection
A. Belloni, X. Li, A. Makhdoumi
ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2025
How Good Are Privacy Guarantees? Platform Architecture and Violation of User Privacy
D. Acemoglu, A. Fallah, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian, A. Ozdaglar
Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE), 2023
Multi-Item Order Fulfillment Revisited: LP Formulation and Prophet Inequality
A. Amil, A. Makhdoumi, Y. Wei
ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2023
Bridging Central and Local Differential Privacy in Data Acquisition Mechanisms
A. Fallah, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian, A. Ozdaglar
NeurIPS, 2022
Optimal and Differentially Private Data Acquisition: Central and Local Mechanisms
A. Fallah, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian, A. Ozdaglar
ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2022
Descending Price Auctions with Bounded Number of Price Levels and Batched Prophet Inequality
S. Alaei, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian, R. Niazadeh
ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2022
Revenue Maximization Under Unknown Private Values With Non-Obligatory Inspection
S. Alaei, A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian
ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 2021
Optimal Dynamic Pricing of Network Goods (short version)
A. Makhdoumi, A. Malekian, A. Ozdaglar
Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2017
Guesswork Subject to a Total Entropy Budget
A. Rezaee, A. Beirami, A. Makhdoumi, M. Médard, K. Duffy
Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2017
Graph Balancing for Distributed Subgradient Methods over Directed Graphs
A. Makhdoumi, A. Ozdaglar
Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2015
Broadcast-based Distributed Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers
A. Makhdoumi, A. Ozdaglar
Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2014
Forgot Your Password: Correlation Dilution
A. Makhdoumi, F. Calmon, M. Médard
International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 2015
Fundamental Limits of Perfect Privacy
F. Calmon, A. Makhdoumi, M. Médard
International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 2015
From Information Bottleneck to Privacy Funnel
A. Makhdoumi, S. Salamatian, N. Fawaz, M. Médard
Information Theory Workshop (ITW), 2014
Utility-Privacy Trade-off under Statistical Uncertainty
A. Makhdoumi, N. Fawaz
Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2013
On Locally Decodable Source Coding
A. Makhdoumi, S. Huang, M. Médard, Y. Polyanskiy
International Conference on Communication (ICC), 2015
A geometric perspective on guesswork
A. Beirami, R. Calderbank, M. Christiansen, K. Duffy, A. Makhdoumi, M. Médard
Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 2015
Using T-codes as locally decodable source codes
U. Speidel, T. A. Gulliver, A. Makhdoumi, M. Médard
Information Theory Workshop (ITW), 2014
Tunable Sparse Network Coding for Multicast Networks
S. Feizi, D. E. Lucani, C. W. Sørensen, A. Makhdoumi, M. Médard
NetCod, 2014
Capacity Achieving Linear Codes with Random Binary Sparse Generating Matrices
A. Makhdoumi, H. K. Abadi, P. Pad, H. Saeedi, F. Marvasti, A. Alishahi
International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 2012

Patents

Method and apparatus for utility-aware privacy preserving mapping through additive noise
With N. Fawaz
US Patent US20160210463 A1
Method and apparatus for utility-aware privacy preserving mapping in view of collusion and composition
With N. Fawaz
US Patent US20160203334 A1
Method and apparatus for utility-aware privacy preserving mapping against inference attacks
With N. Fawaz
US Patent US20160203333 A1

Teaching

Recent and recurring courses.

Decision Models — Fuqua School of Business (MBA & WEMBA)
Applied Probability and Statistics — Fuqua (MQM)
Convex Optimization — Fuqua (PhD)
Modeling and Decision Analysis — Fuqua (MMS)

Interviews & Media

Selected press coverage and policy citations.

Brookings
A Model of Behavioral Manipulation
Coverage of: When Big Data Enables Behavioral Manipulation, AER: Insights (2025).
Read Article View Paper
VoxEU
Can We Have Too Much Data?
Coverage of: Too Much Data: Prices and Inefficiencies in Data Markets, AEJ: Microeconomics (2022).
Read Article View Paper
Forbes
Marketers Are Building Millions of AI Agents
Referencing research on data markets and AI-driven personalization.
Read Article
Fuqua Insights
How AI Could Potentially Manipulate Consumers
Feature story on behavioral manipulation and AI systems.
Read Article
Amazon Science
Monitoring and Rewarding Honest Bids to Increase Revenue in Auctions
Article discussing research on auction design that incentivizes honest bidding to improve revenue — featuring our work on “Optimal Auction Design with Deferred Inspection and Reward.”
Read Article Related Paper
Fuqua Podcast
Why Is Your Data Worth So Little?
Podcast discussion on data value and inefficiencies in data markets.
Listen
The White House
2023 Economic Report of the President
Cited research on data markets and pricing inefficiencies.
View Report
© Ali Makhdoumi