arXiv subjects

Jinzhao Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Jinzhao Wu.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Multi-Dimensional Screening with Endogenous Information Disclosure

We study multi-product monopoly pricing where the seller jointly designs the selling mechanism and the information structure for the buyer to learn his values. Unlike the case with exogenous information, we show that when the seller controls information, even uniform pricing guarantees at least half of the optimal revenue. Moreover, for negatively affiliated or exchangeable value distributions, deterministic pricing is revenue-optimal. Our results highlight the power of information design in making pricing mechanisms approximately optimal in multi-dimensional settings.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2025

Approximately Efficient Bilateral Trade with Samples

We study the social efficiency of bilateral trade between a seller and a buyer. In the classical Bayesian setting, the celebrated Myerson-Satterthwaite impossibility theorem states that no Bayesian incentive-compatible, individually rational, and budget-balanced mechanism can achieve full efficiency. As a counterpoint, Deng, Mao, Sivan, and Wang (STOC 2022) show that if pricing power is delegated to the right person (either the seller or the buyer), the resulting mechanism can guarantee at least a constant fraction of the ideal (yet unattainable) gains from trade. In practice, the agent with pricing power may not have perfect knowledge of the value distribution of the other party, and instead may rely on samples of that distribution to set a price. We show that for a broad class of sampling and pricing behaviors, the resulting market still guarantees a constant fraction of the ideal gains from trade in expectation. Our analysis hinges on the insight that social welfare under sample-based pricing approximates the seller's optimal revenue -- a result we establish via a reduction to a random walk.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2024

Sample-Based Matroid Prophet Inequalities

We study matroid prophet inequalities when distributions are unknown and accessible only through samples. While single-sample prophet inequalities for special matroids are known, no constant-factor competitive algorithm with even a sublinear number of samples was known for general matroids. Adding more to the stake, the single-sample version of the question for general matroids has close (two-way) connections with the long-standing matroid secretary conjecture. In this work, we give a $(\frac14 - \varepsilon)$-competitive matroid prophet inequality with only $O_\varepsilon(\mathrm{poly} \log n)$ samples. Our algorithm consists of two parts: (i) a novel quantile-based reduction from matroid prophet inequalities to online contention resolution schemes (OCRSs) with $O_\varepsilon(\log n)$ samples, and (ii) a $(\frac14 - \varepsilon)$-selectable matroid OCRS with $O_\varepsilon(\mathrm{poly} \log n)$ samples which carefully addresses an adaptivity challenge.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2024

Algorithmic Information Disclosure in Optimal Auctions

This paper studies a joint design problem where a seller can design both the signal structures for the agents to learn their values, and the allocation and payment rules for selling the item. In his seminal work, Myerson (1981) shows how to design the optimal auction with exogenous signals. We show that the problem becomes NP-hard when the seller also has the ability to design the signal structures. Our main result is a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for computing the optimal joint design with at most an $ε$ multiplicative loss in expected revenue. Moreover, we show that in our joint design problem, the seller can significantly reduce the information rent of the agents by providing partial information, which ensures a revenue that is at least $1 - \frac{1}{e}$ of the optimal welfare for all valuation distributions.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2023

Simultaneous Auctions are Approximately Revenue-Optimal for Subadditive Bidders

We study revenue maximization in multi-item auctions, where bidders have subadditive valuations over independent items. Providing a simple mechanism that is approximately revenue-optimal in this setting is a major open problem in mechanism design. In this paper, we present the first \emph{simple mechanism} whose revenue is at least a \emph{constant fraction} of the optimal revenue in multi-item auctions with subadditive bidders. Our mechanism is a simultaneous auction that incorporates either a personalized entry fee or a personalized reserve price per item. We prove that for any simultaneous auction that satisfies c-efficiency -- a new property we propose, its revenue is at least an $O(c)$-approximation to the optimal revenue. We further show that both the \emph{simultaneous first-price} and the \emph{simultaneous all-pay auction} are $1\over 2$-efficient. Providing revenue guarantees for non-truthful simple mechanisms, e.g., simultaneous auctions, in multi-dimensional environments has been recognized by Roughgarden et al. as an important open question. Prior to our result, the only such revenue guarantees are due to Daskalakis et al. for bidders who have additive valuations over independent items. Our result significantly extends the revenue guarantees of these non-truthful simple auctions to settings where bidders have combinatorial valuations.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2023

On the Optimal Fixed-Price Mechanism in Bilateral Trade

We study the problem of social welfare maximization in bilateral trade, where two agents, a buyer and a seller, trade an indivisible item. We consider arguably the simplest form of mechanisms -- the fixed-price mechanisms, where the designer offers trade at a fixed price to the seller and buyer. Besides the simple form, fixed-price mechanisms are also the only DSIC and budget balanced mechanisms in bilateral trade. We obtain improved approximation ratios of fixed-price mechanisms in different settings. In the full prior information setting where the designer has access to the value distributions of both the seller and buyer, we show that the optimal fixed-price mechanism can achieve at least $0.72$ of the optimal welfare, and no fixed-price mechanism can achieve more than $0.7381$ of the optimal welfare. Prior to our result the state of the art approximation ratio was $1 - 1/e + 0.0001 \approx 0.632$. Interestingly, we further show that the optimal approximation ratio achievable with full prior information is identical to the optimal approximation ratio obtainable with only one-sided prior information. We further consider two limited information settings. In the first one, the designer is only given the mean of the buyer's (or the seller's) value. We show that with such minimal information, one can already design a fixed-price mechanism that achieves $2/3$ of the optimal social welfare, which surpasses the previous state of the art ratio even when the designer has access to the full prior information. Furthermore, $2/3$ is the optimal attainable ratio in this setting. In the second one, we assume that the designer has sample access to the value distributions. We propose a new family mechanisms called order statistic mechanisms and provide a complete characterization of their approximation ratios for any fixed number of samples.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2022

Eliciting Thinking Hierarchy without a Prior

When we use the wisdom of the crowds, we usually rank the answers according to their popularity, especially when we cannot verify the answers. However, this can be very dangerous when the majority make systematic mistakes. A fundamental question arises: can we build a hierarchy among the answers \textit{without any prior} where the higher-ranking answers, which may not be supported by the majority, are from more sophisticated people? To address the question, we propose 1) a novel model to describe people's thinking hierarchy; 2) two algorithms to learn the thinking hierarchy without any prior; 3) a novel open-response based crowdsourcing approach based on the above theoretic framework. In addition to theoretic justifications, we conduct four empirical crowdsourcing studies and show that a) the accuracy of the top-ranking answers learned by our approach is much higher than that of plurality voting (In one question, the plurality answer is supported by 74 respondents but the correct answer is only supported by 3 respondents. Our approach ranks the correct answer the highest without any prior); b) our model has a high goodness-of-fit, especially for the questions where our top-ranking answer is correct. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose a thinking hierarchy model with empirical validations in the general problem-solving scenarios; and the first to propose a practical open-response based crowdsourcing approach that beats plurality voting without any prior.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2022

(Fractional) Online Stochastic Matching via Fine-Grained Offline Statistics

Motivated by display advertising on the internet, the online stochastic matching problem is proposed by Feldman, Mehta, Mirrokni, and Muthukrishnan (FOCS 2009). Consider a stochastic bipartite graph with offline vertices on one side and with i.i.d. online vertices on the other side. The algorithm knows the offline vertices and the distribution of the online vertices in advance. Upon the arrival of each online vertex, its type is realized and the algorithm immediately and irrevocably decides how to match it. In the vertex-weighted version of the problem, each offline vertex is associated with a weight and the goal is to maximize the total weight of the matching. In this paper, we generalize the model to allow non-identical online vertices and focus on the fractional version of the vertex-weighted stochastic matching. We design fractional algorithms that are $0.718$-competitive and $0.731$-competitive for non i.i.d. arrivals and i.i.d. arrivals respectively. We also prove that no fractional algorithm can achieve a competitive ratio better than $0.75$ for non i.i.d. arrivals. Furthermore, we round our fractional algorithms by applying the recently developed multiway online correlated selection by Gao et al. (FOCS 2021) and achieve $0.666$-competitive and $0.704$-competitive integral algorithms for non i.i.d. arrivals and i.i.d. arrivals. Our results for non i.i.d. arrivals are the first algorithms beating the $1-1/e \approx 0.632$ barrier of the classical adversarial setting. Our $0.704$-competitive integral algorithm for i.i.d. arrivals slightly improves the state-of-the-art $0.701$-competitive ratio by Huang and Shu (STOC 2021).

cs.DS↗

arXiv2021

Oblivious Online Contention Resolution Schemes

Contention resolution schemes (CRSs) are powerful tools for obtaining "ex post feasible" solutions from candidates that are drawn from "ex ante feasible" distributions. Online contention resolution schemes (OCRSs), the online version, have found myriad applications in Bayesian and stochastic problems, such as prophet inequalities and stochastic probing. When the ex ante distribution is unknown, it was unknown whether good CRSs/OCRSs exist with no sample (in which case the scheme is oblivious) or few samples from the distribution. In this work, we give a simple $\frac{1}{e}$-selectable oblivious single item OCRS by mixing two simple schemes evenly, and show, via a Ramsey theory argument, that it is optimal. On the negative side, we show that no CRS or OCRS with $O(1)$ samples can be $Ω(1)$-balanced/selectable (i.e., preserve every active candidate with a constant probability) for graphic or transversal matroids.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

A Canonical-based NPN Boolean Matching Algorithm Utilizing Boolean Difference and Cofactor Signature

This paper presents a new compact canonical-based algorithm to solve the problem of single-output completely specified NPN Boolean matching. We propose a new signature vector Boolean difference and cofactor (DC) signature vector. Our algorithm utilizes the Boolean difference, cofactor signature and symmetry properties to search for canonical transformations. The use of symmetry and Boolean difference notably reduces the search space and speeds up the Boolean matching process compared to the algorithm proposed in [1]. We tested our algorithm on a large number of circuits. The experimental results showed that the average runtime of our algorithm 37% higher and its average search space 67% smaller compared to [1] when tested on general circuits.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2005

Realizing Ternary Quantum Switching Networks without Ancilla Bits

This paper investigates the synthesis of quantum networks built to realize ternary switching circuits in the absence of ancilla bits. The results we established are twofold. The first shows that ternary Swap, ternary Not and ternary Toffoli gates are universal for the realization of arbitrary $n\times n$ ternary quantum switching networks without ancilla bits. The second result proves that all $n\times n$ quantum ternary networks can be generated by Not, Controlled-Not, Multiply-Two, and Toffoli gates. Our approach is constructive. key words: ternary quantum logic synthesis, quantum circuit optimization, group theory.

quant-ph↗