Optimal auctions vs. anonymous pricing

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Alaei, Saeed; Hardine, Jason; Niazadeh, Rad; Pountourakis, Emmanouil; Yuan, Yang
• 署名单位: Cornell University; Northwestern University; Alphabet Inc.; Google Incorporated; Stanford University; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.08.003
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 494-510
• 关键词: Auction theory; mechanism design; Second price auction; Anonymous pricing; Optimal auction

摘要

For selling a single item to agents with independent but non-identically distributed values, the revenue optimal auction is complex. With respect to it, Hartline and Roughgarden (2009) showed that the approximation factor of the second-price auction with an anonymous reserve is between two and four. We consider the more demanding problem of approximating the revenue of the ex ante relaxation of the auction problem by posting an anonymous price and derive a formula for their worst-case ratio, denoted p, that numerically evaluates to e. As a corollary, the upper-bound of anonymous pricing or anonymous reserves versus the optimal auction improves from four to p e. We conclude that, up to the factor p, discrimination and simultaneity are unimportant for driving revenue in single-item auctions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.