Sequential Mechanisms with Ex Post Individual Rationality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ashlagi, Itai; Daskalakis, Constantinos; Haghpanah, Nima
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park
• 刊物名称: OPERATIONS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0030-364X
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.2022.2332
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 245-258
• 关键词: Sequential mechanisms; multiproduct monopolist; ex post individual rationality

摘要

We study optimal mechanisms for selling multiple products to a buyer who learns her values for those products sequentially. A mechanism may use static prices or adjust them over time, and it may sell the products separately or as bundles. We study mechanisms that provide the buyer a nonnegative ex post utility. We show that there exists an optimal mechanism that determines the allocation of each product as soon as the buyer learns her value for that product. This observation allows us to solve for optimal mechanisms recursively. We use this recursive characterization to show that static mechanisms are suboptimal if the buyer first learns her values for products that are ex ante less valuable. Under this condition, the ability to bundle products is less profitable than the ability to adjust prices dynamically.