Related papers: Simple Mechanisms for Subadditive Buyers via Duali…
We efficiently solve the optimal multi-dimensional mechanism design problem for independent bidders with arbitrary demand constraints when either the number of bidders is a constant or the number of items is a constant. In the first…
We study anonymous posted price mechanisms for combinatorial auctions in a Bayesian framework. In a posted price mechanism, item prices are posted, then the consumers approach the seller sequentially in an arbitrary order, each purchasing…
Multi-item mechanisms can be very complex offering many different bundles to the buyer that could even be randomized. Such complexity is thought to be necessary as the revenue gaps between randomized and deterministic mechanisms, or…
We study the revenue performance of sequential posted price mechanisms and some natural extensions, for a general setting where the valuations of the buyers are drawn from a correlated distribution. Sequential posted price mechanisms are…
In this paper, we present the first approximation algorithms for the problem of designing revenue optimal Bayesian incentive compatible auctions when there are multiple (heterogeneous) items and when bidders can have arbitrary demand and…
We study incentive compatible mechanisms for Combinatorial Auctions where the bidders have submodular (or XOS) valuations and are budget-constrained. Our objective is to maximize the \emph{liquid welfare}, a notion of efficiency for…
In the quest for market mechanisms that are easy to implement, yet close to optimal, few seem as viable as posted pricing. Despite the growing body of impressive results, the performance of most posted price mechanisms however, rely…
We revisit the problem of designing the profit-maximizing single-item auction, solved by Myerson in his seminal paper for the case in which bidder valuations are independently distributed. We focus on general joint distributions, seeking…
We study a classical Bayesian mechanism design problem where a seller is selling multiple items to multiple buyers. We consider the case where the seller has costs to produce the items, and these costs are private information to the seller.…
A seller is selling a pair of divisible complementary goods to an agent. The agent consumes the goods only in a specific ratio and freely disposes of excess in either goods. The value of the bundle and the ratio are private information of…
We study multi-buyer multi-item sequential item pricing mechanisms for revenue maximization with the goal of approximating a natural fractional relaxation -- the ex ante optimal revenue. We assume that buyers' values are subadditive but…
We study the mechanism design problem of selling $k$ items to unit-demand buyers with private valuations for the items. A buyer either participates directly in the auction or is represented by an intermediary, who represents a subset of…
Many auction settings implicitly or explicitly require that bidders are treated equally ex-ante. This may be because discrimination is philosophically or legally impermissible, or because it is practically difficult to implement or…
In budget-feasible mechanism design, there is a set of items $U$, each owned by a distinct seller. The seller of item $e$ incurs a private cost $\overline{c}_e$ for supplying her item. A buyer wishes to procure a set of items from the…
We develop a general duality-theory framework for revenue maximization in additive Bayesian auctions. The framework extends linear programming duality and complementarity to constraints with partial derivatives. The dual system reveals the…
We consider the design of a revenue-optimal mechanism when two items are available to be sold to a single buyer whose valuation is uniformly distributed over an arbitrary rectangle $[c_1,c_1+b_1]\times[c_2,c_2+b_2]$ in the positive…
Along with substantial progress made recently in designing near-optimal mechanisms for multi-item auctions, interesting structural questions have also been raised and studied. In particular, is it true that the seller can always extract…
We provide sufficient conditions for revenue maximization in a two-good monopoly where the buyer's values for the items come from independent (but not necessarily identical) distributions over bounded intervals. Under certain distributional…
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…
A buyer wishes to purchase a durable good from a seller who in each period chooses a mechanism under limited commitment. The buyer's valuation is binary and fully persistent. We show that posted prices implement all equilibrium outcomes of…