Nishanth Dikkala

Can Credit Increase Revenue

Classical models of private value auctions assume that bidders know their own private value for the item being auctioned. We explore games where players have a private value, but can only learn this value through experimentation, a scenario that is typical in AdAuctions. We consider this question in a repeated game context, where early participation in the auction can help the bidders learn their own value. We consider what is a good bidding strategy for a player in this game, and show that with low enough competition new bidders will enter and experiment, but with a bit higher level of competition, initial credit offered by the platform can encourage experimentation, and hence ultimately can increase revenue.

Brief Announcement: Effect of Strategic Grading and Early Offers in Matching Markets

In this paper we consider the effect of strategic behavior in matching markets as school graduates get assigned to jobs (or to further education) reacting to multiple incentives: Companies want to hire the best students, Students want to take the best jobs, Schools want to help their graduating students take great jobs.