eBay的市场中介问题
eBay's Market Intermediation Problem
摘要：
研究了通过连接买卖双方而获得收益的市场中介所面临的最优机制设计问题。我们首先证明了最优中介协议具有实质性的结构：它是算法定价问题的解决方案，其中卖方的成本被虚拟成本所取代，卖方的付款仅需要取决于买方的行为，而不是买方的实际估值函数。由于潜在的算法定价问题可能难以最佳解决，我们研究了特定的买方行为模型，并给出了可证明的近似保证机制。我们发现，只提供一个最有利可图的项目出售保证了$Ω(\frac1{\log n})$部分的最佳收入时，项目价值分布是独立的，并有单调的风险率。当买方同时考虑所有项目、$k$项目或按顺序考虑项目时，我们也给出常数因子近似值。
英文摘要：
We study the optimal mechanism design problem faced by a market intermediary who makes revenue by connecting buyers and sellers. We first show that the optimal intermediation protocol has substantial structure: it is the solution to an algorithmic pricing problem in which seller's costs are replaced with virtual costs, and the sellers' payments need only depend on the buyer's behavior and not the buyer's actual valuation function. Since the underlying algorithmic pricing problem may be difficult to solve optimally, we study specific models of buyer behavior and give mechanisms with provable approximation guarantees. We show that offering only the single most profitable item for sale guarantees an $Ω(\frac1{\log n})$ fraction of the optimal revenue when item value distributions are independent and have monotone hazard rates. We also give constant factor approximations when the buyer considers all items at once, $k$ items at once, or items in sequence.
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