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There is growing experimental evidence that $Q$-learning agents may learn to charge supracompetitive prices. We provide the first theoretical explanation for this behavior in infinite repeated games. Firms update their pricing policies…

General Economics · Economics 2025-05-30 Cristian Chica , Yinglong Guo , Gilad Lerman

The application of incentives, such as reward and punishment, is a frequently applied way for promoting cooperation among interacting individuals in structured populations. However, how to properly use the incentives is still a challenging…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-24 Shengxian Wang , Xiaojie Chen , Zhilong Xiao , Attila Szolnoki , Vítor V. Vasconcelos

We provide simple and approximately revenue-optimal mechanisms in the multi-item multi-bidder settings. We unify and improve all previous results, as well as generalize the results to broader cases. In particular, we prove that the better…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-08-27 Yang Cai , Mingfei Zhao

Welfare maximization in bilateral trade has been extensively studied in recent years. Previous literature obtained incentive-compatible approximation mechanisms only for the private values case. In this paper, we study welfare maximization…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-07-01 Shahar Dobzinski , Alon Eden , Kira Goldner , Ariel Shaulker , Thodoris Tsilivis

Stable matchings have been studied extensively in social choice literature. The focus has been mostly on integral matchings, in which the nodes on the two sides are wholly matched. A fractional matching, which is a convex combination of…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-04-20 Shivika Narang , Y Narahari

We consider schemes for obtaining truthful reports on a common but hidden signal from large groups of rational, self-interested agents. One example are online feedback mechanisms, where users provide observations about the quality of a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2014-01-16 Radu Jurca , Boi Faltings

A seller sells an object over time but is uncertain how the buyer learns their willingness-to-pay. We consider informational robustness under \textit{limited commitment}, where the seller offers a price \textit{each period} to maximize…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-09-10 Zihao Li , Jonathan Libgober , Xiaosheng Mu

While the auto-bidding literature predominantly considers independent bidding, we investigate the coordination problem among multiple auto-bidders in online advertising platforms. Two motivating scenarios are: collaborative bidding among…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Yanru Guan , Jiahao Zhang , Zhe Feng , Tao Lin

An existing challenge in power systems is the implementation of optimal demand management through dynamic pricing. This paper encompasses the design, analysis and implementation of a novel on-line pricing scheme based on coalitional game…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-16 Fernando Genis Mendoza , Pablo R Baldivieso Monasterios , Dario Bauso , George Konstantopoulos

The prospect of collusive agreements being stabilized via the use of pricing algorithms is widely discussed by antitrust experts and economists. However, the literature is often lacking the perspective of computer scientists, and seems to…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2021-10-12 Florian E. Dorner

Collusion in market pricing is a concept associated with human actions to raise market prices through artificially limited supply. Recently, the idea of algorithmic collusion was put forward, where the human action in the pricing process is…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-01-29 Suzie Grondin , Arthur Charpentier , Philipp Ratz

There is growing concern about tacit collusion using algorithmic pricing, and regulators need tools to help detect the possibility of such collusion. This paper studies how to design a hypothesis testing framework in order to decide whether…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-03-31 Pedro Hespanhol , Anil Aswani

We study the revenue performance of sequential posted price mechanisms and some natural extensions, for a general setting where the valuations of the buyers are drawn from a correlated distribution. Sequential posted price mechanisms are…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2015-10-02 Marek Adamczyk , Allan Borodin , Diodato Ferraioli , Bart de Keijzer , Stefano Leonardi

In the rapidly evolving landscape of eCommerce, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based pricing algorithms, particularly those utilizing Reinforcement Learning (RL), are becoming increasingly prevalent. This rise has led to an inextricable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-06 Michael Schlechtinger , Damaris Kosack , Franz Krause , Heiko Paulheim

On ad exchange platforms the place for advertisement is sold through different kinds of auctions. However, it is not uncommon the situation where the seller repeatedly encounters only one buyer, thus the posted price auction degenerates…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-02-05 Nikita Kalinin

We study anonymous posted price mechanisms for combinatorial auctions in a Bayesian framework. In a posted price mechanism, item prices are posted, then the consumers approach the seller sequentially in an arbitrary order, each purchasing…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2014-11-19 Michal Feldman , Nick Gravin , Brendan Lucier

Collaborative learning techniques have the potential to enable training machine learning models that are superior to models trained on a single entity's data. However, in many cases, potential participants in such collaborative schemes are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Florian E. Dorner , Nikola Konstantinov , Georgi Pashaliev , Martin Vechev

Combined prosocial incentives, integrating reward for cooperators and punishment for defectors, are effective tools to promote cooperation among competing agents in population games. Existing research concentrated on how to adjust reward or…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-06 Shengxian Wang , Ming Cao , Xiaojie Chen

There has been substantial recent concern that pricing algorithms might learn to ``collude.'' Supra-competitive prices can emerge as a Nash equilibrium of repeated pricing games, in which sellers play strategies which threaten to punish…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-12-17 Eshwar Ram Arunachaleswaran , Natalie Collina , Sampath Kannan , Aaron Roth , Juba Ziani

Incentive compatibility (IC) is one of the most fundamental properties of an auction mechanism, including those used for online advertising. Recent methods by Feng et al. and Lahaie et al. show that counterfactual runs of the auction…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-07-19 Riccardo Colini-Baldeschi , Stefano Leonardi , Okke Schrijvers , Eric Sodomka