Related papers: Simple vs Optimal Mechanisms in Auctions with Conv…

The existing literature on optimal auctions focuses on optimizing the expected revenue of the seller, and is appropriate for risk-neutral sellers. In this paper, we identify good mechanisms for risk-averse sellers. As is standard in the…

We construct prior-free auctions with constant-factor approximation guarantees with ordered bidders, in both unlimited and limited supply settings. We compare the expected revenue of our auctions on a bid vector to the monotone price…

One of the most celebrated results in mechanism design is Myerson's characterization of the revenue optimal auction for selling a single item. However, this result relies heavily on the assumption that buyers are indifferent to risk. In…

Myerson derived a simple and elegant solution to the single-parameter revenue-maximization problem in his seminal work on optimal auction design assuming the usual model of quasi-linear utilities. In this paper, we consider a slight…

The system operator's scheduling problem in electricity markets, called unit commitment, is a non-convex mixed-integer program. The optimal value function is non-convex, preventing the application of traditional marginal pricing theory to…

Optimal mechanism design enjoys a beautiful and well-developed theory, and also a number of killer applications. Rules of thumb produced by the field influence everything from how governments sell wireless spectrum licenses to how the major…

We study the optimal behavior of a bidder in a real-time auction subject to the requirement that a specified collections of heterogeneous items be acquired within given time constraints. The problem facing this bidder is cast as a…

We consider an outsourcing problem where a software agent procures multiple services from providers with uncertain reliabilities to complete a computational task before a strict deadline. The service consumer requires a procurement strategy…

This work focuses on the mathematical study of constant function market makers. We rigorously establish the conditions for optimal trading under the assumption of a quasilinear, but not necessarily convex (or concave), trade function. This…

We study a seller who sells a single good to multiple bidders with uncertainty over the joint distribution of bidders' valuations, as well as bidders' higher-order beliefs about their opponents. The seller only knows the (possibly…

Inspired by Internet ad auction applications, we study the problem of allocating a single item via an auction when bidders place very different values on the item. We formulate this as the problem of prior-free auction and focus on…

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 independent private values auction environments in which the auctioneer's revenue depends nonlinearly on bidders' interim winning probabilities. Our framework accommodates heterogeneity among bidders and places no ad hoc…

In this paper, we develop a new method for finding an optimal biddingstrategy in sequential auctions, using a dynamic programming technique. Theexisting method assumes that the utility of a user is represented in anadditive form. Thus, the…

We provide algorithms that learn simple auctions whose revenue is approximately optimal in multi-item multi-bidder settings, for a wide range of valuations including unit-demand, additive, constrained additive, XOS, and subadditive. We…

This paper describes an optimization model for setting bid levels for certain types of advertisements on web pages. This model is non-convex, but we are able to obtain optimal or near-optimal solutions rapidly using branch and cut…

In this work, we study spectrum auction problem where each request from secondary users has spatial, temporal, and spectral features. With the requests of secondary users and the reserve price of the primary user, our goal is to design…

We study problems arising in real-time auction markets, common in e-commerce and computational advertising, where bidders face the problem of calculating optimal bids. We focus upon a contract management problem where a demand aggregator is…

This paper studies optimal auction design when valuations depend endogenously on post-auction collaboration between the seller and the winning bidder. Both parties exert non-contractible efforts after the auction, generating a double moral…

We study revenue maximization in multi-item auctions, where bidders have subadditive valuations over independent items. Providing a simple mechanism that is approximately revenue-optimal in this setting is a major open problem in mechanism…