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arXiv · 1311.2138

The Complexity of Optimal Multidimensional Pricing

Xi Chen·Ilias Diakonikolas·Dimitris Paparas·Xiaorui Sun·Mihalis Yannakakis
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Abstract

We resolve the complexity of revenue-optimal deterministic auctions in the unit-demand single-buyer Bayesian setting, i.e., the optimal item pricing problem, when the buyer's values for the items are independent. We show that the problem of computing a revenue-optimal pricing can be solved in polynomial time for distributions of support size 2, and its decision version is NP-complete for distributions of support size 3. We also show that the problem remains NP-complete for the case of identical distributions.

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Xi Chen, Ilias Diakonikolas, Dimitris Paparas, Xiaorui Sun, Mihalis Yannakakis. 2013-11-09. The Complexity of Optimal Multidimensional Pricing. https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.2138

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