Related papers: Discrete Single-Parameter Optimal Auction Design
We propose a new Markov Decision Process (MDP) model for ad auctions to capture the user response to the quality of ads, with the objective of maximizing the long-term discounted revenue. By incorporating user response, our model takes into…
We study the problem of computing optimal prices for a version of the Product-Mix auction with budget constraints. In contrast to the ``standard'' Product-Mix auction, the objective is to maximize revenue instead of social welfare. We prove…
A recent approach to automated mechanism design, differentiable economics, represents auctions by rich function approximators and optimizes their performance by gradient descent. The ideal auction architecture for differentiable economics…
In this paper, we present a new model and two mechanisms for auctions in two-sided markets of buyers and sellers, where budget constraints are imposed on buyers. Our model incorporates polymatroidal environments, and is applicable to a wide…
We study the asymptotic average-case efficiency of static and anonymous posted prices for $n$ agents and $m(n)$ multiple identical items with $m(n)=o\left(\frac{n}{\log n}\right)$. When valuations are drawn i.i.d from some fixed continuous…
We examine trade-offs among stakeholders in ad auctions. Our metrics are the revenue for the utility of the auctioneer, the number of clicks for the utility of the users and the welfare for the utility of the advertisers. We show how to…
We study multi-unit auctions in which bidders have limited knowledge of opponent strategies and values. We characterize optimal prior-free bids; these bids minimize the maximal loss in expected utility resulting from uncertainty surrounding…
Finding the optimal (revenue-maximizing) mechanism to sell multiple items has been a prominent and notoriously difficult open problem. Existing work has mainly focused on deriving analytical results tailored to a particular class of…
Consider the seller's problem of finding optimal prices for her $n$ (divisible) goods when faced with a set of $m$ consumers, given that she can only observe their purchased bundles at posted prices, i.e., revealed preferences. We study…
We consider the fundamental problem of designing a truthful single-item auction with the challenging objective of extracting a large fraction of the highest agent valuation as revenue. Following a recent trend in algorithm design, we assume…
We study the inefficiency of mixed equilibria, expressed as the price of anarchy, of all-pay auctions in three different environments: combinatorial, multi-unit and single-item auctions. First, we consider item-bidding combinatorial…
We revisit the well-studied problem of budget-feasible procurement, where a buyer with a strict budget constraint seeks to acquire services from a group of strategic providers (the sellers). During the last decade, several strategyproof…
Auctions for perishable goods such as internet ad inventory need to make real-time allocation and pricing decisions as the supply of the good arrives in an online manner, without knowing the entire supply in advance. These allocation and…
Recent empirical work demonstrates that online advertisement can exhibit bias in the delivery of ads across users even when all advertisers bid in a non-discriminatory manner. We study the design of ad auctions that, given fair bids, are…
We perform a simulation-based analysis of keyword auctions modeled as one-shot games of incomplete information to study a series of mechanism design questions. Our first question addresses the degree to which incentive compatibility fails…
To select a subset of samples or "winners" from a population of candidates, order sampling [Rosen 1997] and the k-unit Myerson auction [Myerson 1981] share a common scheme: assign a (random) score to each candidate, then select the k…
This paper studies some basic problems in a multiple-object auction model using methodologies from theoretical computer science. We are especially concerned with situations where an adversary bidder knows the bidding algorithms of all the…
We study the design of truthful auctions for selling identical items in unlimited supply (e.g., digital goods) to n unit demand buyers. This classic problem stands out from profit-maximizing auction design literature as it requires no…
Using AI approaches to automatically design mechanisms has been a central research mission at the interface of AI and economics [Conitzer and Sandholm, 2002]. Previous approaches that attempt to design revenue optimal auctions for the…
We consider a robust version of the revenue maximization problem, where a single seller wishes to sell $n$ items to a single unit-demand buyer. In this robust version, the seller knows the buyer's marginal value distribution for each item…