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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

Decision making in modern stochastic systems, including e-commerce platforms, financial markets and healthcare systems, has evolved into a multifaceted process that combines information acquisition and adaptive information sources. This…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-07 Renyuan Xu , Thaleia Zariphopoulou , Luhao Zhang

First-price auctions have recently gained significant traction in digital advertising markets, exemplified by Google's transition from second-price to first-price auctions. Unlike in second-price auctions, where bidding one's private…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-07 Zihao Hu , Xiaoyu Fan , Yuan Yao , Jiheng Zhang , Zhengyuan Zhou

We study a two-sided online data ecosystem comprised of an online platform, users on the platform, and downstream learners or data buyers. The learners can buy user data on the platform (to run a statistic or machine learning task).…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-13 Diptangshu Sen , Jingyan Wang , Juba Ziani

Planning and Learning are complementary approaches. Planning relies on deliberative reasoning about the current state and sequence of future reachable states to solve the problem. Learning, on the other hand, is focused on improving system…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-11 Zlatan Ajanovic , Halil Beglerovic , Bakir Lacevic

We study a setting in which a data buyer seeks to estimate an unknown parameter by purchasing samples from one of K data sellers. Each seller has privately known data quality (e.g., high vs. low variance) and a private per-sample cost. We…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-20 Nivasini Ananthakrishnan , Alireza Fallah , Michael I. Jordan

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…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-11-20 Pasha Andreyanov , Ilia Krasikov , Alex Suzdaltsev

Second-price auctions with reserve play a critical role for modern search engine and popular online sites since the revenue of these companies often directly de- pends on the outcome of such auctions. The choice of the reserve price is the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-12-03 Mehryar Mohri , Andres Muñoz Medina

This paper considers behavior-based price discrimination in the repeated sale of a non-durable good to a single long-lived buyer, by a seller without commitment power. We assume that there is a mixed population of forward-looking…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Rishi Patel , Emmanouil Pountourakis , Samuel Taggart

As the sociological theory of homophily suggests, people tend to interact with those of similar preferences. Motivated by this well-established phenomenon, today's online sellers, such as Amazon,~seek~to learn a new buyer's private…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-30 Qinqi Lin , Lingjie Duan , Jianwei Huang

We consider a model where agents differ in their `types' which determines their voluntary contribution towards a public good. We analyze what the equilibrium composition of groups are under centralized and centralized choice. We show that…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2020-08-10 Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay , Antonio Cabrales

This paper investigates third-degree price discrimination under endogenous market segmentation. Segmenting a market requires access to information about consumers, and this information comes with a cost. I explore the trade-offs between the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-06-11 Irfan Tekdir

We study the problem of finding the optimal bidding strategy for an advertiser in a multi-platform auction setting. The competition on a platform is captured by a value and a cost function, mapping bidding strategies to value and cost…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-27 Gagan Aggarwal , Anupam Gupta , Xizhi Tan , Mingfei Zhao

In this paper we consider the problem of pricing multiple differentiated products. This is challenging as a price change in one product, not only changes the demand of that particular product, but also the demand for the other products. To…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-27 Ruben van de Geer , Sandjai Bhulai

The "free trial" followed by automatic renewal is a dominant business model in the digital economy. Standard models explain trials as a mechanism for consumers to learn their valuation for a product. We propose a complementary theory based…

General Economics · Economics 2025-09-18 F. Nguyen

We study how a budget-constrained bidder should learn to adaptively bid in repeated first-price auctions to maximize her cumulative payoff. This problem arose due to an industry-wide shift from second-price auctions to first-price auctions…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Yige Wang , Jiashuo Jiang

Data regulations increasingly enable consumers to switch among market segments, making segmentation an endogenous outcome of strategic interaction. We study a model in which consumers choose segments before a monopolist sets…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-14 Zhonghong Kuang , Sanxi Li , Yi Liu , Yang Yu

Using duality theory techniques we derive simple, closed-form formulas for bounding the optimal revenue of a monopolist selling many heterogeneous goods, in the case where the buyer's valuations for the items come i.i.d. from a uniform…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-10-14 Yiannis Giannakopoulos

I study multidimensional sequential screening. A monopolist contracts with a buyer who privately observes information about the distribution of their eventual valuations for multiple goods. After initial private information is reported and…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-05 Eric Gao

We study a model of irreversible investment for a decision-maker who has the possibility to gradually invest in a project with unknown value. In this setting, we introduce and explore a feature of "learning-by-doing", where the learning…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-25 Erik Ekström , Yerkin Kitapbayev , Alessandro Milazzo , Topias Tolonen-Weckström