Improved Revenue Bounds for Posted-Price and Second-Price Mechanisms

We study revenue maximization through sequential posted-price (SPP) mechanisms in single-dimensional settings with $n$ buyers and independent but not necessarily identical value distributions. We construct the SPP mechanisms by considering the best of two simple pricing rules: one that imitates the revenue optimal mchanism, namely the Myersonian mechanism, via the taxation principle and the other that posts a uniform price. Our pricing rules are rather generalizable and yield the first improvement over long-established approximation factors in several settings. We design factor-revealing mathematical programs that crisply capture the approximation factor of our SPP mechanism. In the single-unit setting, our SPP mechanism yields a better approximation factor than the state of the art prior to our work (Azar, Chiplunkar & Kaplan, 2018). In the multi-unit setting, our SPP mechanism yields the first improved approximation factor over the state of the art after over nine years (Yan, 2011 and Chakraborty et al., 2010). Our results on SPP mechanisms immediately imply improved performance guarantees for the equivalent free-order prophet inequality problem. In the position auction setting, our SPP mechanism yields the first higher-than $1-1/e$ approximation factor. In eager second-price (ESP) auctions, our two simple pricing rules lead to the first improved approximation factor that is strictly greater than what is obtained by the SPP mechanism in the single-unit setting.Comment: Accepted to Operations Researc

Democratic Welfare State as Visualised by the Quaid-i-Azam

The Quaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is known more for his political achievements than for his socio-economic thought. Last two decades, however, have seen a continuous flow of books containing his speeches, statements, messages, interviews, discussions in pre-independence legislative bodies and addresses in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Even a cursory look at this vast literature shows that he was not only concerned with the political aspect of sub-continent’s independence movement but also consistently expressed his views regarding the socio-economic uplift of masses in general and Muslim society in particular. These views in their bare essentials reflect a remarkable continuity of approach from the earlier days of his political career to the period he occupied the position of Governor General of Pakistan. Actually, he became more and more expressive and forthright as the prospects of Pakistan coming into existence became bright. When Pakistan finally appeared as a sovereign nation on the map of the world, he openly rejected the prevailing economic system as having failed to do justice between man and man and to eradicate friction from the international field.

The Samburu, Maasai, and Their Neighbours: a synopsis of six related volumes by Paul Spencer

The volumes are: "The Samburu: a study of gerontocracy in a nomadic tribe" (1965); "Nomads in Alliance: symbiosis and growth among the Rendille and Samburu of Kenya" (1973); "The Maasai of Matapato: a study of rituals of rebellion" (1988); "Time, Space, and the Unknown: Maasai configurations of power and providence" (2003); "The Pastoral Continuum: the marginalization of tradition in East Africa" (1998); "Youth and Experiences of Ageing among Maa: models of society evoked by the Maasai, Samburu, and Chamus of Kenya" (2014). This synopsis has an index and a maximum of 300 words per chapter

Poverty Alleviation on a Sustainable Basis in the Islamic Framework

Allah (SWT) is the sole creator of this vast universe and whatever it contains. He created man as a master piece of His creation and elevated him to be His vicegerent on earth. He made all physical systems and other creations to cater human needs from the time immoral. And those holding political power in Muslim countries under Islamic teachings are required to make necessary arrangements for the satisfaction of his material needs through efficient utilisation of resources and equitable distribution of goods and services and also to fully protect him from all kinds of fear besides the fear of starvation. There is ample evidence in Quran, Sunnah, and practice of Caliphs to provide food as well as social security to each and every individual in an Islamic economy. Pointing to this fact, an Ayah of Quran enjoying upon Quraish to worship Allah because He has protected them both from starvation and fear by granting them food and peace. Similarly a Hadith says that a society where a Muslim has to starve is forsaken by Allah. The first four Caliphs were fully conscious of their obligation towards meeting the needs of poor. Hazrat Umar (RA) declared, “if a camel dies at the bank of Euphrates, I am afraid Allah would make me accountable for it”. The overwhelming stress on satisfaction of basic needs and social security both of current and future generations leaves no justification for the prevalence of widespread poverty in Islamic framework. As a matter of fact, Islam and absolute poverty cannot persist together.

On Poverty: a call for an economic and theological remedy

This article was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community."In understanding how the prevailing mode of capitalism benefits a select number of institutions and their stakeholders, more and more Americans ought to be inclined to identify as economically oppressed. If a successful attempt is to be made at solving the problem of poverty in the United States, “deep solidarity” must be established among those on the margins of economic prosperity... " [EXCERPT

Islam and private property

Cet article soutient que la faiblesse des libertés économiques dans les pays de l'aire musulmane (1) s'explique par l'histoire du droit musulman et plus particulièrement sa conception des droits de propriété. Il montre que la principale résistance à l'avènement de la propriété privée fût le statut de la terre hérité de la domination des premiers califats. Il rappelle, d'une part, les effets des inégalités formelles entre les hommes (homme – femme, homme – esclave, musulman – non musulman) en droit musulman et, d'autre part, des restrictions sur la propriété sur le développement économique (2), mais soutient que le cœur du blocage est le statut juridique de la terre. Ce statut protège la propriété publique et l'étend à l'eau. Il enferme l'économie dans une logique d'enrichissement où les opportunités de profit sont artificiellement créées par les rentes saisies par la classe dirigeante (3). La conclusion est consacrée à l'avenir de la liberté économique dans cette aire (4).développement économique, droit de propriété, Islam et prédation

The Definition and Measurement of Poverty: An Integrated Islamic Approach

In this paper an attempt is made to learn as to how the Islamic shariah defines and measures the phenomenon of poverty. A systematic study of the Qur’an, the traditions of Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the conduct of righteous caliphs, and the writings of early Muslim jurists would make it clear that the poor, indigent, and destitute are given adequate importance. The early Islamic state, where necessary, made serious efforts to assist and rehabilitate the poor and the needy. One of the means of assistance and rehabilitation was zakat. The disbursement of zakat funds required that the poor should be unambiguously and convincingly separated from the non-poor. How was it done in the past? Traditions of the Prophet (the sunnah) throw sufficient light on this issue. When we carefully go through the traditions, it would be clear that the explanation of poverty as given by the Prophet is dynamic. It defies time and space limitations. A deeper probe of the traditions would reveal that, for all practical purposes, the Prophet has stressed on an integrated approach. His explanation is far more comprehensive, integrated, and meaningful than the one expressed today in terms of daily intake of certain minimum calories. Present-day Muslim countries should redefine their approach towards the definition and measurement of poverty to reflect the essence of Islamic shariah.

Online Contention Resolution Schemes

We introduce a new rounding technique designed for online optimization problems, which is related to contention resolution schemes, a technique initially introduced in the context of submodular function maximization. Our rounding technique, which we call online contention resolution schemes (OCRSs), is applicable to many online selection problems, including Bayesian online selection, oblivious posted pricing mechanisms, and stochastic probing models. It allows for handling a wide set of constraints, and shares many strong properties of offline contention resolution schemes. In particular, OCRSs for different constraint families can be combined to obtain an OCRS for their intersection. Moreover, we can approximately maximize submodular functions in the online settings we consider. We, thus, get a broadly applicable framework for several online selection problems, which improves on previous approaches in terms of the types of constraints that can be handled, the objective functions that can be dealt with, and the assumptions on the strength of the adversary. Furthermore, we resolve two open problems from the literature; namely, we present the first constant-factor constrained oblivious posted price mechanism for matroid constraints, and the first constant-factor algorithm for weighted stochastic probing with deadlines.Comment: 33 pages. To appear in SODA 201