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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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-17 Xinyi Guan , Velibor V. Mišić

The classic third degree price discrimination (3PD) model requires the knowledge of the distribution of buyer valuations and the covariate to set the price conditioned on the covariate. In terms of generating revenue, the classic result…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-07-17 Haitian Xie , Ying Zhu , Denis Shishkin

A central object in optimal stopping theory is the single-choice prophet inequality for independent, identically distributed random variables: Given a sequence of random variables $X_1,\dots,X_n$ drawn independently from a distribution $F$,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-04-08 José R. Correa , Paul Dütting , Felix Fischer , Kevin Schewior

We study a data pricing problem, where a seller has access to $N$ homogeneous data points (e.g. drawn i.i.d. from some distribution). There are $m$ types of buyers in the market, where buyers of the same type $i$ have the same valuation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Keran Chen , Joon Suk Huh , Kirthevasan Kandasamy

We study the problem of estimating a distribution over a finite alphabet from an i.i.d. sample, with accuracy measured in relative entropy (Kullback-Leibler divergence). While optimal bounds on the expected risk are known, high-probability…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-02-27 Jaouad Mourtada

Sellers in online markets face the challenge of determining the right time to sell in view of uncertain future offers. Classical stopping theory assumes that sellers have full knowledge of the value distributions, and leverage this…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-06-30 Pieter Kleer , Johan van Leeuwaarden

In the multi-unit pricing problem, multiple units of a single item are for sale. A buyer's valuation for $n$ units of the item is $v \min \{ n, d\} $, where the per unit valuation $v$ and the capacity $d$ are private information of the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-04-18 Nikhil R. Devanur , Nima Haghpanah , Christos-Alexandros Psomas

We study a single-buyer pricing problem with unreliable side information, motivated by the increasing use of AI-assisted decision-making and LLM-based predictions. The seller observes a private sample that may be either accurate (coinciding…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-06 Zhihao Gavin Tang , Yixin Tao , Shixin Wang

We investigate distribution testing with access to non-adaptive conditional samples. In the conditional sampling model, the algorithm is given the following access to a distribution: it submits a query set $S$ to an oracle, which returns a…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-11-06 Gautam Kamath , Christos Tzamos

We consider parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs) that are augmented with unknown probability distributions over parameter values. The problem is to compute the probability to satisfy a temporal logic specification with any concrete…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2022-12-08 Thom Badings , Murat Cubuktepe , Nils Jansen , Sebastian Junges , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Ufuk Topcu

The aim of survey statistics is to produce estimates with a minimal bias and a corresponding acceptable variance given a specific budget, preferable with a minor response burden for the participants. In recent years, considerable efforts…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-04-02 Martin Hyllienmark , Gustaf Strandell

We consider distributed statistical optimization in one-shot setting, where there are $m$ machines each observing $n$ i.i.d. samples. Based on its observed samples, each machine then sends an $O(\log(mn))$-length message to a server, at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-12 Arsalan Sharifnassab , Saber Salehkaleybar , S. Jamaloddin Golestani

We study a new framework for property testing of probability distributions, by considering distribution testing algorithms that have access to a conditional sampling oracle.* This is an oracle that takes as input a subset $S \subseteq [N]$…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-01-19 Clement Canonne , Dana Ron , Rocco A. Servedio

Randomized algorithms depend on accurate sampling from probability distributions, as their correctness and performance hinge on the quality of the generated samples. However, even for common distributions like Binomial, exact sampling is…

Computation · Statistics 2025-06-17 Uddalok Sarkar , Sourav Chakraborty , Kuldeep S. Meel

We consider the problem of posting prices for unit-demand buyers if all $n$ buyers have identically distributed valuations drawn from a distribution with monotone hazard rate. We show that even with multiple items asymptotically optimal…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-07-02 Alexander Braun , Matthias Buttkus , Thomas Kesselheim

The call auction is a widely used trading mechanism, especially during the opening and closing periods of financial markets. In this paper, we study a standard call auction problem where orders are submitted according to Poisson processes,…

Trading and Market Microstructure · Quantitative Finance 2019-07-15 Ioane Muni Toke

We study the fundamental problems of identity testing (goodness of fit), and closeness testing (two sample test) of distributions over $k$ elements, under differential privacy. While the problems have a long history in statistics, finite…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-01 Jayadev Acharya , Ziteng Sun , Huanyu Zhang

In the online (time-series) search problem, a player is presented with a sequence of prices which are revealed in an online manner. In the standard definition of the problem, for each revealed price, the player must decide irrevocably…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-12-06 Spyros Angelopoulos , Shahin Kamali , Dehou Zhang

We present prior robust algorithms for a large class of resource allocation problems where requests arrive one-by-one (online), drawn independently from an unknown distribution at every step. We design a single algorithm that, for every…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-03-12 Nikhil R. Devanur , Kamal Jain , Balasubramanian Sivan , Christopher A. Wilkens

We present a polynomial-time algorithm that, given samples from the unknown valuation distribution of each bidder, learns an auction that approximately maximizes the auctioneer's revenue in a variety of single-parameter auction environments…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-04-11 Yannai A. Gonczarowski , Noam Nisan