Related papers: Optimal pricing using online auction experiments: …
In this work, we adapt a Monte Carlo algorithm introduced by Broadie and Glasserman (1997) to price a $\pi$-option. This method is based on the simulated price tree that comes from discretization and replication of possible trajectories of…
In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian revenue-maximizing mechanism design model where the items have fixed, exogenously-given prices. Buyers are unit-demand and have an ordinal ranking over purchasing either one of these items at its given…
We study the problem of multi-dimensional revenue maximization when selling $m$ items to a buyer that has additive valuations for them, drawn from a (possibly correlated) prior distribution. Unlike traditional Bayesian auction design, we…
We consider statistical inference in the density estimation model using a tree-based Bayesian approach, with Optional P\'olya trees as prior distribution. We derive near-optimal convergence rates for corresponding posterior distributions…
Simultaneous ascending auctions present agents with the exposure problem: bidding to acquire a bundle risks the possibility of obtaining an undesired subset of the goods. Auction theory provides little guidance for dealing with this…
An indivisible object may be sold to one of $n$ agents who know their valuations of the object. The seller would like to use a revenue-maximizing mechanism but her knowledge of the valuations' distribution is scarce: she knows only the…
We study auctions that are robust at any scale, i.e., they can be applied to sell both expensive and cheap items and achieve the best multiplicative approximations of the optimal revenue in the worst case. We show that the optimal mechanism…
Designing revenue optimal auctions for selling an item to $n$ symmetric bidders is a fundamental problem in mechanism design. Myerson (1981) shows that the second price auction with an appropriate reserve price is optimal when bidders'…
We study the problem of evaluating a discrete function by adaptively querying the values of its variables until the values read uniquely determine the value of the function. Reading the value of a variable is done at the expense of some…
We study the problem of learning the optimal item pricing for a unit-demand buyer with independent item values, and the learner has query access to the buyer's value distributions. We consider two common query models in the literature: the…
The online ads trading platform plays a crucial role in connecting publishers and advertisers and generates tremendous value in facilitating the convenience of our lives. It has been evolving into a more and more complicated structure. In…
We present an extensive analysis of the key problem of learning optimal reserve prices for generalized second price auctions. We describe two algorithms for this task: one based on density estimation, and a novel algorithm benefiting from…
Modern ad auctions allow advertisers to target more specific segments of the user population. Unfortunately, this is not always in the best interest of the ad platform. In this paper, we examine the following basic question in the context…
We study the performance of anonymous posted-price selling mechanisms for a standard Bayesian auction setting, where $n$ bidders have i.i.d. valuations for a single item. We show that for the natural class of Monotone Hazard Rate (MHR)…
Assortment optimization concerns the problem of selling items with fixed prices to a buyer who will purchase at most one. Typically, retailers select a subset of items, corresponding to an "assortment" of brands to carry, and make each…
Research in reinforcement learning has produced algorithms for optimal decision making under uncertainty that fall within two main types. The first employs a Bayesian framework, where optimality improves with increased computational time.…
We analyze a tree search problem with an underlying Markov decision process, in which the goal is to identify the best action at the root that achieves the highest cumulative reward. We present a new tree policy that optimally allocates a…
The robust multi-product pricing problem is to determine the prices of a collection of products so as to maximize the worst-case revenue, where the worst case is taken over an uncertainty set of demand models that the firm expects could be…
We consider the problem of optimal bidding for virtual trading in two-settlement electricity markets. A virtual trader aims to arbitrage on the differences between day-ahead and real-time market prices; both prices, however, are random and…
Consider a network design application where we wish to lay down a minimum-cost spanning tree in a given graph; however, we only have stochastic information about the edge costs. To learn the precise cost of any edge, we have to conduct a…