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We analyze a nonlinear pricing model where the seller controls both product pricing (screening) and buyer information about their own values (persuasion). We prove that the optimal mechanism always consists of finitely many signals and…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-03-11 Dirk Bergemann , Tibor Heumann , Stephen Morris

We consider the multidimensional space-fractional diffusion equations with spatially varying diffusivity and fractional order. Significant computational challenges are encountered when solving these equations due both to the kernel…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2021-08-31 Hasnaa Alzahrani , George Turkiyyah , Omar Knio , David Keyes

A principal screens an agent with an arbitrary set of allocations $X$. The agent's preferences over allocations are comonotonic. A subset of allocations $X^*\subseteq X$ is a surplus-elasticity frontier if (i) any other allocation has a…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-02-24 Frank Yang

Given an initial matching and a policy objective on the distribution of agent types to institutions, we study the existence of a mechanism that weakly improves the distributional objective and satisfies constrained efficiency, individual…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2023-03-13 Isa E. Hafalir , Fuhito Kojima , M. Bumin Yenmez

We provide a unifying framework for distributed convex optimization over time-varying networks, in the presence of constraints and uncertainty, features that are typically treated separately in the literature. We adopt a proximal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-05-24 Kostas Margellos , Alessandro Falsone , Simone Garatti , Maria Prandini

This study investigates a robust screening problem under distributional ambiguity, where a seller is uncertain about a buyer's true valuation distribution, knowing only that it lies near a reference distribution measured by the Wasserstein…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-19 Shumin Ma , Daniel Zhuoyu Long , Lijian Lu

We consider a general formulation of the Principal-Agent problem with a lump-sum payment on a finite horizon, providing a systematic method for solving such problems. Our approach is the following: we first find the contract that is optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-01-10 Jakša Cvitanić , Dylan Possamaï , Nizar Touzi

We study the hidden-action principal-agent problem in an online setting. In each round, the principal posts a contract that specifies the payment to the agent based on each outcome. The agent then makes a strategic choice of action that…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Banghua Zhu , Stephen Bates , Zhuoran Yang , Yixin Wang , Jiantao Jiao , Michael I. Jordan

In model selection problems for machine learning, the desire for a well-performing model with meaningful structure is typically expressed through a regularized optimization problem. In many scenarios, however, the meaningful structure is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-11-09 Jonathan Bunton , Paulo Tabuada

In this paper, we consider the revealed preferences problem from a learning perspective. Every day, a price vector and a budget is drawn from an unknown distribution, and a rational agent buys his most preferred bundle according to some…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2012-11-20 Morteza Zadimoghaddam , Aaron Roth

Gradient-based optimization methods are commonly used to identify local optima in high-dimensional spaces. When derivatives cannot be evaluated directly, stochastic estimators can provide approximate gradients. However, these estimators'…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Philipp Andelfinger , Wentong Cai

We study the problem of zero-order optimization of a strongly convex function. The goal is to find the minimizer of the function by a sequential exploration of its values, under measurement noise. We study the impact of higher order…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-28 Arya Akhavan , Massimiliano Pontil , Alexandre B. Tsybakov

A principal has $m$ identical objects to allocate among a group of $n$ agents. Objects are desirable and the principal's value of assigning an object to an agent is the agent's private information. The principal can verify up to $k$ agents,…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-09-04 Albin Erlanson , Andreas Kleiner

Algorithmic contract design studies scenarios where a principal incentivizes an agent to exert effort on her behalf. In this work, we focus on settings where the agent's type is drawn from an unknown distribution, and formalize an offline…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-01-27 Paul Duetting , Michal Feldman , Tomasz Ponitka , Ermis Soumalias

We consider the problem of probabilistic allocation of objects under ordinal preferences. We devise an allocation mechanism, called the vigilant eating rule (VER), that applies to nearly arbitrary feasibility constraints. It is constrained…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-07-09 Haris Aziz , Florian Brandl

We prove lower bounds for higher-order methods in smooth non-convex finite-sum optimization. Our contribution is threefold: We first show that a deterministic algorithm cannot profit from the finite-sum structure of the objective, and that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-07-05 Nicolas Emmenegger , Rasmus Kyng , Ahad N. Zehmakan

We present a general technique for the analysis of first-order methods. The technique relies on the construction of a duality gap for an appropriate approximation of the objective function, where the function approximation improves as the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-12 Jelena Diakonikolas , Lorenzo Orecchia

Optimization methods are at the core of many problems in signal/image processing, computer vision, and machine learning. For a long time, it has been recognized that looking at the dual of an optimization problem may drastically simplify…

Numerical Analysis · Computer Science 2014-12-04 Nikos Komodakis , Jean-Christophe Pesquet

Dense image matching is a fundamental low-level problem in Computer Vision, which has received tremendous attention from both discrete and continuous optimization communities. The goal of this paper is to combine the advantages of discrete…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2016-01-26 Alexander Shekhovtsov , Christian Reinbacher , Gottfried Graber , Thomas Pock

We study a generic principal-agent problem in continuous time on a finite time horizon. We introduce a framework in which the agent is allowed to employ measure-valued controls and characterise the continuation utility as a solution to a…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-12-01 Daniel Kršek , Dylan Possamaï