Related papers: Constrained-Order Prophet Inequalities
We consider a combinatorial auction setting where buyers have fractionally subadditive (XOS) valuations over the items and the seller's objective is to maximize the social welfare. A prophet inequality in this setting bounds the competitive…
Suppose a customer is faced with a sequence of fluctuating prices, such as for airfare or a product sold by a large online retailer. Given distributional information about what price they might face each day, how should they choose when to…
We consider descending price auctions for selling $m$ units of a good to unit demand i.i.d. buyers where there is an exogenous bound of $k$ on the number of price levels the auction clock can take. The auctioneer's problem is to choose…
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,…
Hoeffding's Inequality provides the maximum probability that a series of n draws from a bounded random variable differ from the variable's true expectation u by more than given tolerance t. The random variable is typically the error rate of…
A decisionmaker faces $n$ alternatives, each of which represents a potential reward. After investing costly resources into investigating the alternatives, the decisionmaker may select one, or more generally a feasible subset, and obtain the…
We study single-sample prophet inequalities (SSPIs), i.e., prophet inequalities where only a single sample from each prior distribution is available. Besides a direct, and optimal, SSPI for the basic single choice problem [Rubinstein et…
Let $X_1,X_2,\ldots$ be independent identically distributed nonnegative random variables. Wald's identity states that the random sum $S_T:=X_1+\cdots+X_T$ has expectation $E(T)) E(X_1)$ provided $T$ is a stopping time. We prove here that…
We consider prophet inequalities subject to feasibility constraints that are the intersection of $q$ matroids. The best-known algorithms achieve a $\Theta(q)$-approximation, even when restricted to instances that are the intersection of $q$…
Despite having the same basic prophet inequality setup and model of loss aversion, conclusions in our multi-dimensional model differs considerably from the one-dimensional model of Kleinberg et al. For example, Kleinberg et al. gives a…
We consider game-theoretically secure distributed protocols for coalition games that approximate the Shapley value with small multiplicative error. Since all known existing approximation algorithms for the Shapley value are randomized, it…
Motivated by the growing interest in correlation-robust stochastic optimization, we investigate stochastic selection problems beyond independence. Specifically, we consider the instructive case of pairwise-independent priors and matroid…
We study generalizations of the "Prophet Inequality" and "Secretary Problem", where the algorithm is restricted to an arbitrary downward-closed set system. For {0,1}-values, we give O(log n)-competitive algorithms for both problems. This is…
Over the past two decades, significant strides have been made in stochastic problems such as revenue-optimal auction design and prophet inequalities, traditionally modeled with $n$ independent random variables to represent the values of $n$…
We introduce a novel framework of Prophet Inequalities for combinatorial valuation functions. For a (non-monotone) submodular objective function over an arbitrary matroid feasibility constraint, we give an $O(1)$-competitive algorithm. For…
There is a set of n indivisible items (or chores), and a set of n players. Each day, a single item should be assigned to each player. We want to ensure that all players feel that they have been treated fairly, not only after the last day,…
We consider an atomic congestion game in which each player $i$ participates in the game with an exogenous and known probability $p_{i}\in(0,1]$, independently of everybody else, or stays out and incurs no cost. We compute the parameterized…
Numerous recent papers have studied the tension between thickening and clearing a market in (uncertain, online) long-time horizon Markovian settings. In particular, (Aouad and Sarita{\c{c}} EC'20, Collina et al. WINE'20, Kessel et al.…
We study a fundamental problem in optimization under uncertainty. There are $n$ boxes; each box $i$ contains a hidden reward $x_i$. Rewards are drawn i.i.d. from an unknown distribution $\mathcal{D}$. For each box $i$, we see $y_i$, an…
We design novel mechanisms for welfare-maximization in two-sided markets. That is, there are buyers willing to purchase items and sellers holding items initially, both acting rationally and strategically in order to maximize utility. Our…