10,124 research outputs found
Fairs for e-commerce: the benefits of aggregating buyers and sellers
In recent years, many new and interesting models of successful online
business have been developed. Many of these are based on the competition
between users, such as online auctions, where the product price is not fixed
and tends to rise. Other models, including group-buying, are based on
cooperation between users, characterized by a dynamic price of the product that
tends to go down. There is not yet a business model in which both sellers and
buyers are grouped in order to negotiate on a specific product or service. The
present study investigates a new extension of the group-buying model, called
fair, which allows aggregation of demand and supply for price optimization, in
a cooperative manner. Additionally, our system also aggregates products and
destinations for shipping optimization. We introduced the following new
relevant input parameters in order to implement a double-side aggregation: (a)
price-quantity curves provided by the seller; (b) waiting time, that is, the
longer buyers wait, the greater discount they get; (c) payment time, which
determines if the buyer pays before, during or after receiving the product; (d)
the distance between the place where products are available and the place of
shipment, provided in advance by the buyer or dynamically suggested by the
system. To analyze the proposed model we implemented a system prototype and a
simulator that allow to study effects of changing some input parameters. We
analyzed the dynamic price model in fairs having one single seller and a
combination of selected sellers. The results are very encouraging and motivate
further investigation on this topic
Transforming Energy Networks via Peer to Peer Energy Trading: Potential of Game Theoretic Approaches
Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading has emerged as a next-generation energy
management mechanism for the smart grid that enables each prosumer of the
network to participate in energy trading with one another and the grid. This
poses a significant challenge in terms of modeling the decision-making process
of each participant with conflicting interest and motivating prosumers to
participate in energy trading and to cooperate, if necessary, for achieving
different energy management goals. Therefore, such decision-making process
needs to be built on solid mathematical and signal processing tools that can
ensure an efficient operation of the smart grid. This paper provides an
overview of the use of game theoretic approaches for P2P energy trading as a
feasible and effective means of energy management. As such, we discuss various
games and auction theoretic approaches by following a systematic classification
to provide information on the importance of game theory for smart energy
research. Then, the paper focuses on the P2P energy trading describing its key
features and giving an introduction to an existing P2P testbed. Further, the
paper zooms into the detail of some specific game and auction theoretic models
that have recently been used in P2P energy trading and discusses some important
finding of these schemes.Comment: 38 pages, single column, double spac
Asymmetric demand information in uniform and discriminatory call auctions: an experimental analysis motivated by electricity markets
We study the outcomes of experimental multi-unit uniform and discriminatory auctions with demand uncertainty. Our study is motivated by the ongoing debate about market design in the electricity industry. Our main aim is to compare the effect of asymmetric demand-information between sellers on the performance of the two auction institutions. In our baseline conditions all sellers have the same information, whereas in our treatment conditions some sellers have better information than others. In both information conditions we find that average transaction prices and price volatility are not significantly different under the two auction institutions. However, when there is asymmetric information among sellers the discriminatory auction is significantly less efficient. These results are not in line with the typical arguments made in favor of discriminatory pricing in electricity industries; namely, lower consumer prices and less price volatility. Moreover, our results provide some indication that discriminatory auctions reduce technical efficiency relative to uniform auctions.Experiments, asymmetric information, discriminatory price auctions, uniform price auctions, electricity industries
A dynamic pricing model for unifying programmatic guarantee and real-time bidding in display advertising
There are two major ways of selling impressions in display advertising. They
are either sold in spot through auction mechanisms or in advance via guaranteed
contracts. The former has achieved a significant automation via real-time
bidding (RTB); however, the latter is still mainly done over the counter
through direct sales. This paper proposes a mathematical model that allocates
and prices the future impressions between real-time auctions and guaranteed
contracts. Under conventional economic assumptions, our model shows that the
two ways can be seamless combined programmatically and the publisher's revenue
can be maximized via price discrimination and optimal allocation. We consider
advertisers are risk-averse, and they would be willing to purchase guaranteed
impressions if the total costs are less than their private values. We also
consider that an advertiser's purchase behavior can be affected by both the
guaranteed price and the time interval between the purchase time and the
impression delivery date. Our solution suggests an optimal percentage of future
impressions to sell in advance and provides an explicit formula to calculate at
what prices to sell. We find that the optimal guaranteed prices are dynamic and
are non-decreasing over time. We evaluate our method with RTB datasets and find
that the model adopts different strategies in allocation and pricing according
to the level of competition. From the experiments we find that, in a less
competitive market, lower prices of the guaranteed contracts will encourage the
purchase in advance and the revenue gain is mainly contributed by the increased
competition in future RTB. In a highly competitive market, advertisers are more
willing to purchase the guaranteed contracts and thus higher prices are
expected. The revenue gain is largely contributed by the guaranteed selling.Comment: Chen, Bowei and Yuan, Shuai and Wang, Jun (2014) A dynamic pricing
model for unifying programmatic guarantee and real-time bidding in display
advertising. In: The Eighth International Workshop on Data Mining for Online
Advertising, 24 - 27 August 2014, New York Cit
Pricing average price advertising options when underlying spot market prices are discontinuous
Advertising options have been recently studied as a special type of
guaranteed contracts in online advertising, which are an alternative sales
mechanism to real-time auctions. An advertising option is a contract which
gives its buyer a right but not obligation to enter into transactions to
purchase page views or link clicks at one or multiple pre-specified prices in a
specific future period. Different from typical guaranteed contracts, the option
buyer pays a lower upfront fee but can have greater flexibility and more
control of advertising. Many studies on advertising options so far have been
restricted to the situations where the option payoff is determined by the
underlying spot market price at a specific time point and the price evolution
over time is assumed to be continuous. The former leads to a biased calculation
of option payoff and the latter is invalid empirically for many online
advertising slots. This paper addresses these two limitations by proposing a
new advertising option pricing framework. First, the option payoff is
calculated based on an average price over a specific future period. Therefore,
the option becomes path-dependent. The average price is measured by the power
mean, which contains several existing option payoff functions as its special
cases. Second, jump-diffusion stochastic models are used to describe the
movement of the underlying spot market price, which incorporate several
important statistical properties including jumps and spikes, non-normality, and
absence of autocorrelations. A general option pricing algorithm is obtained
based on Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, an explicit pricing formula is
derived for the case when the option payoff is based on the geometric mean.
This pricing formula is also a generalized version of several other option
pricing models discussed in related studies.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 201
FlexAuc: Serving Dynamic Demands in a Spectrum Trading Market with Flexible Auction
In secondary spectrum trading markets, auctions are widely used by spectrum
holders (SHs) to redistribute their unused channels to secondary wireless
service providers (WSPs). As sellers, the SHs design proper auction schemes to
stimulate more participants and maximize the revenue from the auction. As
buyers, the WSPs determine the bidding strategies in the auction to better
serve their end users.
In this paper, we consider a three-layered spectrum trading market consisting
of the SH, the WSPs and the end users. We jointly study the strategies of the
three parties. The SH determines the auction scheme and spectrum supplies to
optimize its revenue. The WSPs have flexible bidding strategies in terms of
both demands and valuations considering the strategies of the end users. We
design FlexAuc, a novel auction mechanism for this market to enable dynamic
supplies and demands in the auction. We prove theoretically that FlexAuc not
only maximizes the social welfare but also preserves other nice properties such
as truthfulness and computational tractability.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Preliminary version accepted in INFOCOM 201
The"IPO-Plus": a new approach to privatization
Every approach to privatization entails tradeoffs. The chief advantage of case-by-case privatization -including sales for cash or initial public offerings (IPOs)- is efficiency. Case-by-case privatization generates revenues, gives shareholders control over managers, and provides access to capital and skills. But it is slow and does not promote widespread public participation. Voucher-based mass privatization programs, by contrast, are designed to promote equity in the distribution of wealth, through widespread participation. But they do not ensure efficiency because they may not generate revenues, bring in new capital or skills, or give shareholders control over managers. To promote equity and efficiency, the authors propose a new form of privatization -IPO-Plus- that incorporates key features of both case-by-case privatization and mass privatization. IPO-Plus promotes equity through widespread (but not mass) participation in privatization. It promotes efficiency by making privatization transparent, by fostering capital market development, and by creating independent financial institutions that would press companies to improve their financial performance. It relies not on vouchers but on the sale of low-priced public shares. It allows deferred payment for company shares as an incentive to purchase them as well as downwardly flexible share prices. Because the quality of the enterprises chosen for privatization is essential to the success of the IPO-Plus program, it is important that few enterprises targeted for IPO-Plus be published before the program is launched. This will motivate potential investors to join the program by setting up management companies, establishing public investment funds, and buying shares in them. IPO-Plus is more likely than mass privatization to create real owners. Investors in IPO-Plus are given a subsidy, but only in proportion to what they themselves choose to pay. The individual determines (up to a ceiling) how much to invest in the program. IPO-Plus is particularly appropriate where the objective is to encourage outside ownership rather than significant employee ownership. It encourages the emergence of market intermediaries and ensures the concentration of enterprise shares in investment funds. Outside ownership and concentration of share voting rights provide the basis for enterprise restructuring and economic growth.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism
Multi-keyword multi-click advertisement option contracts for sponsored search
In sponsored search, advertisement (abbreviated ad) slots are usually sold by
a search engine to an advertiser through an auction mechanism in which
advertisers bid on keywords. In theory, auction mechanisms have many desirable
economic properties. However, keyword auctions have a number of limitations
including: the uncertainty in payment prices for advertisers; the volatility in
the search engine's revenue; and the weak loyalty between advertiser and search
engine. In this paper we propose a special ad option that alleviates these
problems. In our proposal, an advertiser can purchase an option from a search
engine in advance by paying an upfront fee, known as the option price. He then
has the right, but no obligation, to purchase among the pre-specified set of
keywords at the fixed cost-per-clicks (CPCs) for a specified number of clicks
in a specified period of time. The proposed option is closely related to a
special exotic option in finance that contains multiple underlying assets
(multi-keyword) and is also multi-exercisable (multi-click). This novel
structure has many benefits: advertisers can have reduced uncertainty in
advertising; the search engine can improve the advertisers' loyalty as well as
obtain a stable and increased expected revenue over time. Since the proposed ad
option can be implemented in conjunction with the existing keyword auctions,
the option price and corresponding fixed CPCs must be set such that there is no
arbitrage between the two markets. Option pricing methods are discussed and our
experimental results validate the development. Compared to keyword auctions, a
search engine can have an increased expected revenue by selling an ad option.Comment: Chen, Bowei and Wang, Jun and Cox, Ingemar J. and Kankanhalli, Mohan
S. (2015) Multi-keyword multi-click advertisement option contracts for
sponsored search. ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology, 7
(1). pp. 1-29. ISSN: 2157-690
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