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Pricing algorithms have demonstrated the capability to learn tacit collusion that is largely unaddressed by current regulations. Their increasing use in markets, including oligopolistic industries with a history of collusion, calls for…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-26 Paul Friedrich , Barna Pásztor , Giorgia Ramponi

Artificial intelligence algorithms are increasingly used by firms to set prices. Previous research shows that they can exhibit collusive behaviour, but how quickly they can do so has so far remained an open question. I show that a modern…

General Economics · Economics 2026-04-20 Kevin Michael Frick

We modify the standard model of price competition with horizontally differentiated products, imperfect information, and search frictions by allowing consumers to flexibly acquire information about a product's match value during their…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-04-28 Vasudha Jain , Mark Whitmeyer

We study a contest in which $N$ players sequentially draw from a distribution as many times as they want at a fixed cost per draw, with no recall, and the highest accepted value wins a prize. In the unique symmetric equilibrium, the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-04-28 Emre Ozdenoren , Murat Erkurt

This paper examines whether widely used online learning algorithms in pricing can independently reach competitive outcomes or instead foster tacit collusion. This issue has drawn considerable attention from competition regulators as…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Martin Bichler , Julius Durmann , Matthias Oberlechner

We analyze competition on nonlinear prices in homogeneous goods markets with consumer search. In equilibrium firms offer two-part tariffs consisting of a linear price and lump-sum fee. The equilibrium production is socially efficient as the…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-10-01 Atabek Atayev

We consider games in which players search for a hidden prize, and they have asymmetric information about the prize location. We study the social payoff in equilibria of these games. We present sufficient conditions for the existence of an…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-04-19 Gilad Bavly , Yuval Heller , Amnon Schreiber

We study the effect of interim feedback policies in a dynamic all-pay auction where two players bid over two stages to win a common-value prize. We show that sequential equilibrium outcomes are characterized by Cheapest Signal Equilibria,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-10-28 Sumit Goel , Yiqing Yan , Jeffrey Zeidel

We study a model of competitive information design in an oligopoly search market with heterogeneous consumer search costs. A unique class of equilibria -- upper-censorship equilibria -- emerges under intense competition. In equilibrium,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-07-23 Dongjin Hwang , Ilwoo Hwang

Most active learning research has focused on methods which perform well when many labels are available, but can be dramatically worse than random selection when label budgets are small. Other methods have focused on the low-budget regime,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-28 Wonho Bae , Gabriel L. Oliveira , Danica J. Sutherland

The rise of the machine learning (ML) model economy has intertwined markets for training datasets and pre-trained models. However, most pricing approaches still separate data and model transactions or rely on broker-centric pipelines that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Hongrun Ren , Yun Xiong , Lei You , Yingying Wang , Haixu Xiong , Yangyong Zhu

This paper considers the problem of offering a scarce object with a common unobserved quality to strategic agents in a priority queue. Each agent has a private signal over the quality of the object and observes the decisions made by other…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-05-01 Itai Ashlagi , Jamie Kang , Moran Koren , Faidra Monachou

Large-scale online recommendation systems must facilitate the allocation of a limited number of items among competing users while learning their preferences from user feedback. As a principled way of incorporating market constraints and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-15 Yigit Efe Erginbas , Soham Phade , Kannan Ramchandran

The partition of society into groups, polarization, and social networks are part of most conversations today. How do they influence price competition? We discuss Bertrand duopoly equilibria with demand subject to network effects. Contrary…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-10-13 Renato Soeiro , Alberto Pinto

We study markets where firms compete for consumer attention by subsidizing costly product inspection. These subsidies do not change product quality, but they alter the order in which consumers search by lowering inspection costs. We…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-29 Salvador Candelas , Nicole Immorlica , Brendan Lucier

We study the ramifications of increased commitment power for information provision in an oligopolistic market with search frictions. Although prices are posted and, therefore, guide search, if firms cannot commit to information provision…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-02-20 Pak Hung Au , Mark Whitmeyer

Why is the U.S. industry-level productivity dispersion countercyclical? Theoretically, we build a duopoly model in which heterogeneous R&D costs determine firms' optimal behaviors and the equilibrium technology gap after a negative profit…

General Economics · Economics 2022-11-01 Shuowen Chen , Yang Ming

Large-scale AI data center portfolios procure identical SKUs across geographically heterogeneous campuses, yet finance and operations require a single system-level 'world price' per SKU for budgeting and planning. A common practice is…

General Economics · Economics 2026-01-27 Qi He

The rapid expansion of digital commerce platforms has amplified the strategic importance of coordinated pricing and inventory management decisions among competing retailers. Motivated by practices on leading e-commerce platforms, we analyze…

General Economics · Economics 2025-12-02 Hang Wu , Qin Wu , Yue Liu , Mengmeng Shi

We examine the dynamics of informational efficiency in a market with asymmetrically informed, boundedly rational traders who adaptively learn optimal strategies using simple multiarmed bandit (MAB) algorithms. The strategies available to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-11-11 Aleksei Pastushkov