Related papers: An Optimal Distributionally Robust Auction
I construct a novel random double auction as a robust bilateral trading mechanism for a profit-maximizing intermediary who facilitates trade between a buyer and a seller. It works as follows. The intermediary publicly commits to charging a…
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…
We study the problem of designing optimal auctions under restrictions on the set of permissible allocations. In addition to allowing us to restrict to deterministic mechanisms, we can also indirectly model non-additive valuations. We prove…
A seller wants to sell an item to $n$ buyers. Buyer valuations are drawn i.i.d. from a distribution unknown to the seller; the seller only knows that the support is included in $[a, b]$. To be robust, the seller chooses a DSIC mechanism…
When selling many goods with independent valuations, we develop a distributionally robust framework, consisting of a two-player game between seller and nature. The seller has only limited knowledge about the value distribution. The seller…
We consider the fundamental scenario where a single item is to be sold to one of two agents. Both agents draw their valuation for the item from the same probability distribution. However, only one of them submits a bid to the mechanism. The…
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'…
A seller with one unit of a good faces N\geq3 buyers and a single competitor who sells one other identical unit in a second-price auction with a reserve price. Buyers who do not get the seller's good will compete in the competitor's…
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…
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…
We consider a model of bilateral trade with private values. The value of the buyer and the cost of the seller are jointly distributed. The true joint distribution is unknown to the designer, however, the marginal distributions of the value…
We study buyer-optimal procurement mechanisms when quality is contractible. When some costs are borne by every participant of a procurement auction regardless of winning, the classic analysis should be amended. We show that an optimal…
In a multiple-object auction, every bidder tries to win as many objects as possible with a bidding algorithm. This paper studies position-randomized auctions, which form a special class of multiple-object auctions where a bidding algorithm…
We analyze a model of selling a single object to a principal-agent pair who want to acquire the object for a firm. The principal and the agent have different assessments of the object's value to the firm. The agent is budget-constrained…
The auction of a single indivisible item is one of the most celebrated problems in mechanism design with transfers. Despite its simplicity, it provides arguably the cleanest and most insightful results in the literature. When the…
We study the problem of designing a two-sided market (double auction) to maximize the gains from trade (social welfare) under the constraints of (dominant-strategy) incentive compatibility and budget-balance. Our goal is to do so for an…
We design a fixed-price auction mechanism for a seller to sell multiple items in a tree-structured market. The buyers have independently drawn valuation from a uniform distribution, and the seller would like to incentivize buyers to invite…
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 a dynamic mechanism design problem where an auctioneer sells an indivisible good to groups of buyers in every round, for a total of $T$ rounds. The auctioneer aims to maximize their discounted overall revenue while adhering to a…
We consider a monopolist seller with $n$ heterogeneous items, facing a single buyer. The buyer has a value for each item drawn independently according to (non-identical) distributions, and her value for a set of items is additive. The…