EconBase
← All papers

Statistical Mechanism Design: Robust Pricing, Estimation, and Inference

Duarte Gonçalves, Bruno A. Furtado

arXiv 27 May 2024 · Theoretical Economics · 1 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2405.17178 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper tackles challenges in pricing and revenue projections due to consumer uncertainty. We propose a novel data-based approach for firms facing unknown consumer type distributions. Unlike existing methods, we assume firms only observe a finite sample of consumers' types. We introduce empirically optimal mechanisms, a simple and intuitive class of sample-based mechanisms with strong finite-sample revenue guarantees. Furthermore, we leverage our results to develop a toolkit for statistical inference on profits. Our approach allows to reliably estimate the profits associated for any particular mechanism, to construct confidence intervals, and to, more generally, conduct valid hypothesis testing.

Citation extraction

41
references
77
in-text mentions
41
distinct cited
0
self-citations
15,354
main-text words

appendix boundary found by none_found · 100% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Vinicius Carrasco, Vitor Farinha Luz, Nenad Kos, Matthias Messner, P… (2018) Optimal selling mechanisms under moment conditions1.00073100%
2Dirk Bergemann \ Karl H. Schlag (2011) Robust monopoly pricing1.00064100%
3Dirk Bergemann \ Karl H. Schlag (2008) Pricing without Priors0.81142100%
4Richard Cole \ Tim Roughgarden (2014) The Sample Complexity of Revenue Maximization0.73732100%
5Zhiyi Huang, Yishay Mansour \ Tim Roughgarden (2018) Making the Most of Your Samples0.73732100%
6Eric Maskin \ John Riley (1984) Monopoly with Incomplete Information0.73732100%
7Juuso Toikka (2011) Ironing without control0.73732100%
8Aryeh Dvoretzky, Jack Kiefer \ Jacob Wolfowitz (1956) Asymptotic Minimax Character of the Sample Distribution Function and of the Classical Multinomial Estimator0.64422100%
9J. L. Lusk \ J. F. Shogren (2007) Experimental Auctions: Methods and Applications in Economics and Marketing Research. Cambridge University Press0.64422100%
10Paul Milgrom \ Ilya Segal (2002) Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 41 scored citations.