Agent's multiple inquiries for enhancing the partnership formation process

The concept of sequential two-sided search is widely used in partnerships formation applications in various domains. However, when considering the implementation of the method in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), one may notice a strong incentive for agents to deviate from the traditional equilibrium sequential search strategy towards an extended search method which combines simultaneous inquiries in each search round. In the current paper we explore such a model, where agents of a specific type can use this kind of simultaneous search technique. Since all agents types strategies take into consideration the other agents' strategies, the main focus is on the equilibrium analysis. By introducing the agents' expected utility functions, we manage to present a complete equilibrium based analysis for the new model combining the simultaneous inquiries technique. The specific characteristics of the equilibria, derived from the analysis, allow us to suggest efficient algorithms for calculating each agent's strategy. As a complementary application for the proposed model, we suggest the buyer-seller two-sided search process in C2C eMarketplace environments. Here, buyer agents utilize the new search technique in order to enforce a new equilibrium which yields a better utility for themselves. The perceived improvement in the agents performance in comparison to the traditional two-sided search method is demonstrated through simulations.