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arXiv · 2609.06464

Minimization Prophet Inequality with Bounded Costs

Haolong Li·Xiaowei Wu
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Abstract

We study the cost-minimization prophet inequality problem, in which a decision-maker sequentially observes $n$ independent and identically distributed (IID) random variables. After each observation, the decision-maker must either accept the current realization and stop, or reject it and continue with the next variable. The goal is to minimize the selected value. Unlike the classical maximization setting, if none of the first $n-1$ values is accepted, the final realization must be selected. Esfandiari et al. (SIDMA 2017) showed that this problem does not admit constant-competitive online algorithms in general, which motivates subsequent work on restricted distribution classes, such as entire distributions (Livanos and Mehta, SODA 2024) and distributions with bounded extreme values (Livanos and Mehta, EC 2025). In this work, we focus on distributions with bounded support. For distributions supported on $[1,b]$, we characterize the competitive ratio of online algorithms as a function of both $b$ and $n$. We consider both distribution-aware and distribution-oblivious settings. In the distribution-aware case, we provide a nearly tight characterization of the optimal online algorithm, showing that its competitive ratio is at most $b^{(1-1/n)^n}$ for all $n\geq 2$. More significantly, we design a distribution-oblivious algorithm that achieves the same guarantee, with a sequence of predetermined thresholds that depend only on $b$ and $n$. Furthermore, we extend our analysis to the non-IID setting, where we show that a simple single-threshold algorithm attains an asymptotically optimal competitive ratio of $\Theta(\sqrt{b})$.

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Haolong Li, Xiaowei Wu. 2026-09-06. Minimization Prophet Inequality with Bounded Costs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06464

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