Agents, self-interest and electronic markets

How free are our software agents to take the best possible care of our inte rests? How free can we make them? In what sense and to what extent do curre ntly proposed mechanisms and agent behaviors consider self-interest? What c urrent research addresses these issues? What needs to be done? We address t hese issues in the context of electronic markets, such as consumer goods ma rkets and (future, more fine-grained) markets for electric power or communi cation bandwidth.