Related papers: A/B Testing of Auctions
When interpreting A/B tests, we typically focus only on the statistically significant results and take them by face value. This practice, termed post-selection inference in the statistical literature, may negatively affect both point…
A/B testing is widely used in modern technology companies for policy evaluation and product deployment, with the goal of comparing the outcomes under a newly-developed policy against a standard control. Various causal inference and…
This paper studies inference in first-price and second-price sealed-bid auctions with many bidders, using an asymptotic framework where the number of bidders increases while the number of auctions remains fixed. Our approach enables…
We study the question of setting and testing reserve prices in single item auctions when the bidders are not identical. At a high level, there are two generalizations of the standard second price auction: in the lazy version we first…
A/B testing refers to the task of determining the best option among two alternatives that yield random outcomes. We provide distribution-dependent lower bounds for the performance of A/B testing that improve over the results currently…
Edge computing as a promising technology provides lower latency, more efficient transmission, and faster speed of data processing since the edge servers are closer to the user devices. Each edge server with limited resources can offload…
In practice, most auction mechanisms are not strategy-proof, so equilibrium analysis is required to predict bidding behavior. In many auctions, though, an exact equilibrium is not known and one would like to understand whether -- manually…
We provide the first direct test of how the credibility of an auction format affects bidding behavior and final outcomes. To do so, we conduct a series of laboratory experiments where the role of the seller is played by a human subject who…
We propose a general stochastic framework for modelling repeated auctions in the Real Time Bidding (RTB) ecosystem using point processes. The flexibility of the framework allows a variety of auction scenarios including configuration of…
In this paper, we study behavior of bidders in an experimental launch of a new advertising auction platform by Zillow, as Zillow switched from negotiated contracts to using auctions in several geographically isolated markets. A unique…
We initiate the study of statistical inference and A/B testing for first-price pacing equilibria (FPPE). The FPPE model captures the dynamics resulting from large-scale first-price auction markets where buyers use pacing-based budget…
We propose a uniform approach for the design and analysis of prior-free competitive auctions and online auctions. Our philosophy is to view the benchmark function as a variable parameter of the model and study a broad class of functions…
A/B testing has become the cornerstone of decision-making in online markets, guiding how platforms launch new features, optimize pricing strategies, and improve user experience. In practice, we typically employ the pairwise $t$-test to…
We improve the best known competitive ratio (from 1/4 to 1/2), for the online multi-unit allocation problem, where the objective is to maximize the single-price revenue. Moreover, the competitive ratio of our algorithm tends to 1, as the…
When developing a new networking algorithm, it is established practice to run a randomized experiment, or A/B test, to evaluate its performance. In an A/B test, traffic is randomly allocated between a treatment group, which uses the new…
Contemporary real-world online ad auctions differ from canonical models [Edelman et al., 2007; Varian, 2009] in at least four ways: (1) values and click-through rates can depend upon users' search queries, but advertisers can only partially…
Internet search companies sell advertisement slots based on users' search queries via an auction. While there has been a lot of attention on the auction process and its game-theoretic aspects, our focus is on the advertisers. In particular,…
We study procurement auctions, where an auctioneer seeks to acquire services from strategic sellers with private costs. The quality of services is measured by a submodular function known to the auctioneer. Our goal is to design…
Today, many auctions are carried out with the help of intermediary platforms like Google and eBay. We refer to such auctions as platform-assisted auctions.Traditionally, the auction theory literature mainly focuses on designing auctions…
Understanding bidding behavior in multi-unit auctions remains an ongoing challenge for researchers. Despite their widespread use, theoretical insights into the bidding behavior, revenue ranking, and efficiency of commonly used multi-unit…