CCF Computational Economics Challenge

Track One Track Two

Background

The competition is sponsored by the China Computer Federation (CCF) and jointly organized by the CCF Computational Economics Professional Group and the Nanjing Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The title of this competition is Taxing AI.

In real life, taxation and public spending are two important policies related to socio-economic development and the gap between rich and poor. A reasonable government often needs to dynamically adjust these two policies according to the realities of the people. In reality, however, household people are often assumed to be independent and that each household pursues his or her own interests. People's day-to-day activities can be boiled down to production, consumption, investment, and exchange. Each household is paid for its work (production), which is used to buy goods (exchange) to meet the needs of life (consumption), and may deposit surplus funds in the bank or for financial management (investment). For each family, how to distribute income and how to balance work and rest time to improve life happiness, has been a long-term topic. Some families are thrifty and save for a long time for a rainy day. Some families prefer instant pleasures and often can't make ends meet. Some people choose to work long hours and work hard but neglect their health; Some people prefer to work from 9 to 5 and spend a lot of time enjoying life. The aggregate economic activities of these households constitute a macro economic society, and their evaluation will be reflected in indicators such as economic growth, wealth distribution and social welfare. For the government, how can it promote steady and sustained economic growth？How to ensure social fairness and stability and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor？How can every family live a happy life and enjoy social benefits？ These have been long-standing goals and responsibilities of the government.

game roles
render gif

In order to explore the complex game problem described above, we construct a TaxAl simulator to explore the conflicts and connections between the decisions of different actors in an ideal environment, and how an agent can make rational decisions in complex situations. TaxAl simulator has four roles: government, households, companies and financial institutions (as shown in the figure above). In practice, firms and financial institutions are determined by predefined hyperparameters and fixed rules as part of the environmental mechanism, while government and households change dynamically due to different decisions. The direct relationship between each role can be summarized as:

  1. household: An household has multiple households, each acting as an independent household and maximizing their own personal interests. households' productivity levels are hierarchical and fluctuate over time. households can choose to receive remuneration from the company for a certain amount of time (controllable) and purchase goods or services from the company for a certain amount of money (controllable) for consumption. households can also choose to deposit the remaining funds in financial institutions and receive regular appreciation based on interest rates. households are also required to pay taxes to the government. The interests of each household will be determined by work and consumption, for example, working long hours to the detriment of personal interests and consumption will increase personal interests.
  2. Government: The government, acting as the center of economic regulation, borrows money from financial institutions and levies taxes on households, and the government invests the funds in companies (as government spending). The main objectives of the government are to promote domestic production and to balance the distribution of wealth in society.
  3. Financial institutions: Financial institutions, such as banks, receive deposits from households and pay interest at interest rates. Financial institutions will also lend to governments and companies.
  4. Company: A company pays households for their work and sells goods to them. The company will also receive investments from the government and loans from financial institutions.

For a detailed description of the relationship, see GitHub Link: github link 。

Track

The challenge consists of two tracks, focusing on decision making issues in the economy and society from different roles.

Track 1: Smart Tax-Government Challenge


Track 1 adopts a smart tax-government environment. In this environment, players will take on the role of a government, challenging how to promote domestic production and balance the distribution of wealth in a complex economic society. household characters will be randomly drawn from existing strategies to add randomness to the game. The government will have macro information about the economy and society, such as overall wage levels, average assets, average incomes and productivity of different wealth groups, and will issue policies to regulate tax rates and government spending based on this information in order to maximize gross domestic product (GDP) and balance the distribution of wealth (Gini Index).

Track webpage: http://www.jidiai.cn/compete_detail?compete=42

Track 2: Smart Taxation - household Challenge


Track 2 uses a smart tax-personal environment. In this environment, households, as part of the economy, need to adjust the proportion of their working hours and wealth investment according to their own understanding of the social information and economic situation to maximize their own personal interests. There are 4 household decision-makers in this environment, each independent of each other. The optimal benefit of each person is a function of personal consumption and working hours, and the higher the consumption, the shorter the working hours, and the higher the personal benefits. Therefore, an optimal household agent needs to achieve a balance between work and consumption through decision-making based on the observed information, combined with its own assets and productivity.

Track webpage: http://www.jidiai.cn/compete_detail?compete=43

How To Participate

The challenge is jointly organized by the CCF Computational Economics Professional Group and the Nanjing Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The venue of the competition is online and the multi-agent open source open platform (and platform). The platform provides fair agent evaluation and real-time ranking functions for contestants online. Users only need to register an account on the platform and register to participate in the challenge.

Each team consists of 1-3 members, including a team leader and two team members. Entry Steps:

  1. All participants are required to register and account with their email/mobile phone number, and fill in their real names and organizational structure;
  2. The captain of the participating team logs in to his and his account, fills in the team name, organization, and team member's email/mobile phone number in the "Register Now" in the ring, and completes the registration after successful submission;
  3. Write and train the agent locally, which can be submitted in the subject Smart Taxation - Government and the subject Smart Taxation - household to participate in the Gold List ranking (does not affect the ranking in the ring, only used for daily testing of the agent level);
  4. Before the submission deadline of each warm-up match and the main competition, log in to the captain's account, submit the agent code and related parameter files in the "Agent Submission", and check whether the agent has passed the verification in the "Personal Page - Submission List" (you can submit multiple times, but you need to submit a new one after the previous verification is completed, otherwise an incorrect verification result may be generated);
  5. At the end of each stage, check the results of the game, such as the results, rankings, game replays, etc., in the "Results".

Come and Sign up for the competition!

Platform tutorial Code (Github) Code (Gitee)

Game Time

Open for registration: 01 August 2023, 10:30 (UTC+8)
Warm-up Round 1 Submission Deadline: 2023/08/28, 10:30 (UTC+8)
Warm-up Round 2 Submission Deadline: 2023/09/18, 10:30 (UTC+8)
Submission Deadline (Tentative): October 09, 2023, 10:30 (UTC+8)
Submission Deadline for Round 2 (Tentative): October 30, 2023 (UTC+8)

Organizational Staff

Zhang Haifeng

Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nanjing Artificial Intelligence Innovation Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Song Yan

Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences