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Non‐Clairvoyant Dynamic Mechanism Design
Author(s) -
Mirrokni Vahab,
Paes Leme Renato,
Tang Pingzhong,
Zuo Song
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta15530
Subject(s) - mechanism design , mechanism (biology) , revenue , computer science , dynamic pricing , microeconomics , mathematical optimization , power (physics) , economics , econometrics , operations research , mathematics , finance , philosophy , epistemology , physics , quantum mechanics
We introduce a new family of dynamic mechanisms that restricts sellers from using future distributional knowledge. Since the allocation and pricing of each auction period do not depend on the type distributions of future periods, we call this family of dynamic mechanisms non‐clairvoyant. We develop a framework (bank account mechanisms) for characterizing, designing, and proving lower bounds for dynamic mechanisms (clairvoyant or non‐clairvoyant). We use the same methods to compare the revenue extraction power of clairvoyant and non‐clairvoyant dynamic mechanisms.