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Related papers: Static pricing for multi-unit prophet inequalities

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A prophet inequality states, for some $\alpha\in[0,1]$, that the expected value achievable by a gambler who sequentially observes random variables $X_1,\dots,X_n$ and selects one of them is at least an $\alpha$ fraction of the maximum value…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-24 José Correa , Paul Dütting , Felix Fischer , Kevin Schewior , Bruno Ziliotto

We continue the study of the performance for fixed-price mechanisms in the bilateral trade problem, and improve approximation ratios of welfare-optimal mechanisms in several settings. Specifically, in the case where only the buyer…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-03-29 Zhengyang Liu , Zeyu Ren , Zihe Wang

In this paper, we survey literature on prophet inequalities for subadditive combinatorial auctions. We give an overview of the previous best $O(\log \log m)$ prophet inequality as well as the preceding $O(\log m)$ prophet inequality. Then,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Dwaipayan Saha , Ananya Parashar

Prophet inequalities consist of many beautiful statements that establish tight performance ratios between online and offline allocation algorithms. Typically, tightness is established by constructing an algorithmic guarantee and a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-03-14 Jiashuo Jiang , Will Ma , Jiawei Zhang

In the classic prophet inequality, samples from independent random variables arrive online. A gambler that knows the distributions must decide at each point in time whether to stop and pick the current sample or to continue and lose that…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-03-13 Jose Correa , Raimundo Saona , Bruno Ziliotto

Time or money? That is a question! In this paper, we consider this dilemma in the pricing regime, in which we try to find the optimal pricing scheme for identical items with heterogenous time-sensitive buyers. We characterize the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-02-23 Zhengyang Liu , Liang Shan , Zihe Wang

In a classical online decision problem, a decision-maker who is trying to maximize her value inspects a sequence of arriving items to learn their values (drawn from known distributions), and decides when to stop the process by taking the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-05-26 Nicole Immorlica , Sahil Singla , Bo Waggoner

We consider the classical mathematical economics problem of {\em Bayesian optimal mechanism design} where a principal aims to optimize expected revenue when allocating resources to self-interested agents with preferences drawn from a known…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2010-01-15 Shuchi Chawla , Jason Hartline , David Malec , Balasubramanian Sivan

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-08-03 Moshe Babaioff , Nicole Immorlica , Brendan Lucier , S. Matthew Weinberg

The prophet and secretary problems demonstrate online scenarios involving the optimal stopping theory. In a typical prophet or secretary problem, selection decisions are assumed to be immediate and irrevocable. However, many online settings…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-11-07 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ilan Nehama

We study revenue maximization through sequential posted-price (SPP) mechanisms in single-dimensional settings with $n$ buyers and independent but not necessarily identical value distributions. We construct the SPP mechanisms by considering…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-01-11 Hedyeh Beyhaghi , Negin Golrezaei , Renato Paes Leme , Martin Pal , Balasubramanian Sivan

We consider the problem of pricing a reusable resource service system. Potential customers arrive according to a Poisson process and purchase the service if their valuation exceeds the current price. If no units are available, customers…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-14 Adam N. Elmachtoub , Jiaqi Shi

Prophet inequalities are fundamental optimal stopping problems, where a decision-maker observes sequentially items with values sampled independently from known distributions, and must decide at each new observation to either stop and gain…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Ziyad Benomar , Dorian Baudry , Vianney Perchet

We introduce the \textit{prophet inequality with uncertain acceptance} model, in which a decision maker sequentially observes a sequence of independent options, each characterized by a value $x_i$ and an acceptance probability $p_i$, both…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Emile Martinez , Felipe Garrido-Lucero , Umberto Grandi , Sebastian Pérez-Salazar

Prophet inequalities bound the expected reward that can be obtained in a stopping problem by the optimal reward of its corresponding off-line version. We propose a systematic technique for deriving prophet inequalities for stopping problems…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-02-10 Halil I. Bayrak , Mustafa Ç. Pınar , Rakesh Vohra

We consider prophet inequalities in a setting where agents correspond to both elements in a matroid and vertices in a graph. A set of agents is feasible if they form both an independent set in the matroid and an independent set in the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-07-17 Jackie Baek , Will Ma

This paper considers a finite horizon optimal stopping problem for a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, where the objective is to design stopping rules that attempt to select the random variable with the…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Alexander Goldenshluger , Yaakov Malinovsky , Assaf Zeevi

Consider a trade market with one seller and multiple buyers. The seller aims to sell an indivisible item and maximize their revenue. This paper focuses on a simple and popular mechanism--the fixed-price mechanism. Unlike the standard…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Zhikang Fan , Weiran Shen

In the adaptive ProbeMax problem, given a collection of mutually-independent random variables $X_1, \ldots, X_n$, our goal is to design an adaptive probing policy for sequentially sampling at most $k$ of these variables, with the objective…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-10-17 Guillermo Gallego , Danny Segev

We study a natural combinatorial pricing problem for sequentially arriving buyers with equal budgets. Each buyer is interested in exactly one pair of items and purchases this pair if and only if, upon arrival, both items are still available…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-02-24 Christoph Dürr , Mathieu Mari , Ulrike Schmidt-Kraepelin