Selling Information Through Consulting Yiling Chen Haifeng Xu

Selling Information Through Consulting Yiling Chen, Haifeng Xu, Shuran Zheng Harvard University Jan, 2020

We know a lot about selling items. . .

How do we sell a piece of information? • e. g. Flight. Aware flight delay

How do we sell a piece of information? • Babaioff et al. [2012]: buyers with unlimited budget • Budget-constrained buyers

How do we sell a piece of information? loss wait 0 take a train 100

How do we sell a piece of information? • Suppose Flight. Aware knows the exact delay and wants to sell it. • 2 buyers: buyer 1 buyer 2 loss 400 600 prior belief [0, 7. 9984] [0, 8. 0016]

Our Contribution Consider budget-constrained buyers • Simple optimal mechanism • Compute via a polynomial-size LP • Improves the previous exponential-size LP by Babaioff et al. [2012] that solves one-round optimal mechanism when there is no budget constraint Adding budget constraint makes the problem easier

Model: information buyer •

Model: information seller •

Model: information as signals • good 2/3 1/3 s good bad 1/3 2/3 • A menu of (partial information, price)

Model: mechanisms • Multiple-round mechanisms • Recommend actions to the buyer and then charge some prices Assuming the buyer maximizes his own utility

Our Contribution •

Our Contribution • good bad 2/3 1/3 2/3

Our Contribution • good bad 2/3 1/3 2/3 wait, refund 0

Our Contribution Theorem: There always exists an IC and IR Consulting Mechanism that achieves no less revenue than any (possibly multiple-round) mechanisms.

Proof ideas Generic Protocol do not know how to compute One-round Mechanism LP with exponentially many variables and exp. constraints Consulting Mechanism simple structure; LP with polynomial size

Proof ideas Duality Variable elimination Duality

Proof ideas • Two possible payments • Can be reduced to a consulting mechanism

Polynomial-size LP •

Summary •

Thanks & Questions?

Model: mechanisms seller … buyer … …