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We consider the prophet inequality problem for (not necessarily bipartite) matching problems with independent edge values, under both edge arrivals and vertex arrivals. We show constant-factor prophet inequalities for the case where the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2021-08-03 Paul Dütting , Federico Fusco , Philip Lazos , Stefano Leonardi , Rebecca Reiffenhäuser

The secretary and the prophet inequality problems are central to the field of Stopping Theory. Recently, there has been a lot of work in generalizing these models to multiple items because of their applications in mechanism design. The most…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-03-20 Soheil Ehsani , MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , Thomas Kesselheim , Sahil Singla

We design online algorithms for the fair allocation of public goods to a set of $N$ agents over a sequence of $T$ rounds and focus on improving their performance using predictions. In the basic model, a public good arrives in each round,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-10-03 Siddhartha Banerjee , Vasilis Gkatzelis , Safwan Hossain , Billy Jin , Evi Micha , Nisarg Shah

In the best choice problem with random arrivals, an unknown number $n$ of rankable items arrive at times sampled from the uniform distribution. As is well known, a real-time player can ensure stopping at the overall best item with…

Probability · Mathematics 2021-03-09 Alexander Gnedin

We provide prophet inequality algorithms for online weighted matching in general (non-bipartite) graphs, under two well-studied arrival models, namely edge arrival and vertex arrival. The weight of each edge is drawn independently from an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-02-27 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Nick Gravin , Zhihao Gavin Tang

We investigate the role of commitment in optimal stopping by studying all the variants between Prophet Inequality (PI) and Pandora's Box (PB). Both problems deal with a set of variables drawn from known distributions. In PI the gambler…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-09-30 José Correa , Evangelia Gergatsouli , Bruno Ziliotto

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-05-23 Shuchi Chawla , Trung Dang , Zhiyi Huang , Yifan Wang

In the problem of online unweighted interval selection, the objective is to maximize the number of non-conflicting intervals accepted by the algorithm. In the conventional online model of irrevocable decisions, there is an Omega(n) lower…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Allan Borodin , Christodoulos Karavasilis

We consider a practically motivated variant of the canonical online fair allocation problem: a decision-maker has a budget of perishable resources to allocate over a fixed number of rounds. Each round sees a random number of arrivals, and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-03 Siddhartha Banerjee , Chamsi Hssaine , Sean R. Sinclair

The Submodular Welfare Maximization problem (SWM) captures an important subclass of combinatorial auctions and has been studied extensively from both computational and economic perspectives. In particular, it has been studied in a natural…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-11-20 Niv Buchbinder , Moran Feldman , Yuval Filmus , Mohit Garg

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 consider the problem in which n items arrive to a market sequentially over time, where two agents compete to choose the best possible item. When an agent selects an item, he leaves the market and obtains a payoff given by the value of…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-04-12 Fabien Gensbittel , Dana Pizarro , Jérôme Renault

We present a general framework for stochastic online maximization problems with combinatorial feasibility constraints. The framework establishes prophet inequalities by constructing price-based online approximation algorithms, a natural…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-07-11 Paul Dütting , Michal Feldman , Thomas Kesselheim , Brendan Lucier

Traditionally, recommender systems operate by returning a user a set of items, ranked in order of estimated relevance to that user. In recent years, methods relying on stochastic ordering have been developed to create "fairer" rankings that…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2022-09-13 Amanda Bower , Kristian Lum , Tomo Lazovich , Kyra Yee , Luca Belli

We study a pricing problem where a seller has $k$ identical copies of a product, buyers arrive sequentially, and the seller prices the items aiming to maximize social welfare. When $k=1$, this is the so called "prophet inequality" problem…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-06-21 Shuchi Chawla , Nikhil Devanur , Thodoris Lykouris

The I.I.D. Prophet Inequality is a fundamental problem where, given $n$ independent random variables $X_1,\dots,X_n$ drawn from a known distribution $\mathcal{D}$, one has to decide at every step $i$ whether to stop and accept $X_i$ or…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-12-02 Vasilis Livanos , Ruta Mehta

Due to numerous applications in retail and (online) advertising the problem of assortment selection has been widely studied under many combinations of discrete choice models and feasibility constraints. In many situations, however, an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-08-11 Vineet Goyal , Salal Humair , Orestis Papadigenopoulos , Assaf Zeevi

We study the classic divide-and-choose method for equitably allocating divisible goods between two players who are rational, self-interested Bayesian agents. The players have additive values for the goods. The prior distributions on those…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-10-22 Jamie Tucker-Foltz , Richard Zeckhauser

The prophet inequalities problem has received significant study over the past decades and has several applications such as to online auctions. In this paper, we study two variants of the i.i.d. prophet inequalities problem, namely the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-12-01 William Marshall , Nolan Miranda , Albert Zuo

The Santa Claus problem is a fundamental problem in fair division: the goal is to partition a set of heterogeneous items among heterogeneous agents so as to maximize the minimum value of items received by any agent. In this paper, we study…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-03-07 MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi , MohammadReza Khani , Debmalya Panigrahi , Max Springer