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Approximation Algorithms for the Max-Buying Problem with Limited Supply

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Abstract

We consider the Max-Buying Problem with Limited Supply, in which there are n items, with C i copies of each item i, and m bidders such that every bidder b has valuation v ib for item i. The goal is to find a pricing p and an allocation of items to bidders that maximize the profit, where every item is allocated to at most C i bidders, every bidder receives at most one item and if a bidder b receives item i then p i  ≤ v ib . Briest and Krysta presented a 2-approximation for this problem and Aggarwal et al. presented a 4-approximation for the Price Ladder variant where the pricing must be non-increasing (that is, p 1 ≥ p 2 ≥ ⋯ ≥ p n ). We present a randomized e/(e − 1)-approximation for the Max-Buying Problem with Limited Supply and, for every ε > 0, a (2 + ε)-approximation for the Price Ladder variant.

Research partially supported by CNPq (Proc. 309657/2009-1 and 475064/2010-0) and FAPESP (Proc. 2009/00387-7 and 2013/03447-6).

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Fernandes, C.G., Schouery, R.C.S. (2014). Approximation Algorithms for the Max-Buying Problem with Limited Supply. In: Pardo, A., Viola, A. (eds) LATIN 2014: Theoretical Informatics. LATIN 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8392. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54423-1_61

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54423-1_61

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-54422-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-54423-1

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