Internet and Network Economics
Volume 6484 of the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science pp 424-431
Equilibrium Pricing with Positive Externalities (Extended Abstract)
- Nima AnariAffiliated withComputer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology
- , Shayan EhsaniAffiliated withComputer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology
- , Mohammad GhodsiAffiliated withComputer Engineering Department, Sharif University of TechnologyInstitute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM)
- , Nima HaghpanahAffiliated withEECS Department, Northwestern University
- , Nicole ImmorlicaAffiliated withEECS Department, Northwestern University
- , Hamid MahiniAffiliated withComputer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology
- , Vahab S. MirrokniAffiliated withGoogle Research NYC
Abstract
We study the problem of selling an item to strategic buyers in the presence of positive historical externalities, where the value of a product increases as more people buy and use it. This increase in the value of the product is the result of resolving bugs or security holes after more usage. We consider a continuum of buyers that are partitioned into types where each type has a valuation function based on the actions of other buyers. Given a fixed sequence of prices, or price trajectory, buyers choose a day on which to purchase the product, i.e., they have to decide whether to purchase the product early in the game or later after more people already own it. We model this strategic setting as a game, study existence and uniqueness of the equilibria, and design an FPTAS to compute an approximately revenue-maximizing pricing trajectory for the seller in two special cases: the symmetric settings in which there is just a single buyer type, and the linear settings that are characterized by an initial type-independent bias and a linear type-dependent influenceability coefficient.
- Title
- Equilibrium Pricing with Positive Externalities (Extended Abstract)
- Book Title
- Internet and Network Economics
- Book Subtitle
- 6th International Workshop, WINE 2010, Stanford, CA, USA, December 13-17, 2010. Proceedings
- Pages
- pp 424-431
- Copyright
- 2010
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-642-17572-5_35
- Print ISBN
- 978-3-642-17571-8
- Online ISBN
- 978-3-642-17572-5
- Series Title
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science
- Series Volume
- 6484
- Series ISSN
- 0302-9743
- Publisher
- Springer Berlin Heidelberg
- Copyright Holder
- Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Industry Sectors
- eBook Packages
- Editors
-
- Amin Saberi (16)
- Editor Affiliations
-
- 16. Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University
- Authors
-
- Nima Anari (17)
- Shayan Ehsani (17)
- Mohammad Ghodsi (17) (18)
- Nima Haghpanah (19)
- Nicole Immorlica (19)
- Hamid Mahini (17)
- Vahab S. Mirrokni (20)
- Author Affiliations
-
- 17. Computer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology,
- 18. Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P.O. Box: 19395-5746, Tehran, Iran
- 19. EECS Department, Northwestern University,
- 20. Google Research NYC, 76 9th Ave, New York, NY, 10011
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