Event Date
Andy Choi, with Yeon-Koo Che "Optimal Auction Design for Dynamic Stochastic Environments: Myerson Meets Naor" Abstract: Motivated by applications such as cloud computing, gig platforms, and blockchain auctions, we study optimal selling mechanisms for dynamic markets with stochastic supply and demand. In our model, buyers with private valuations and homogeneous goods arrive stochastically and can be held in queues at a cost. The optimal mechanism pairs allocative efficiency with dynamic admission control: goods are assigned to the highest-value buyer, while entry is restricted by value thresholds that strictly increase with the queue length and decrease with available inventory. This policy smooths competitive pressure across time and is implemented in dominant strategies via auctions with dynamic reserve prices. Download paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.22862
Patrick Lahr, with Axel Niemeyer and Marek Pycia "Complex Menus in Discriminatory Pricing"
Abstract: Advances in technology decrease the costs of offering and choosing from large menus of varieties. As these complexity costs fall, how large are the menus offered by monopolists likely to become? For the multi-product or multi-attribute case, ubiquitous in practice, we show that optimal menus are generically infinite in the absence of complexity costs. Complexity costs can decrease the menu size, but it grows without bound as these costs decrease. These results have no analogue in the single-dimensional model and do not rely on non-linearities in production costs or preferences; the extensive product differentiation is caused by screening considerations alone. Download paper here: https://ucdavis.box.com/s/2jfd4mfujjwiphgvwnjf1opqtslv3kvw