6 papers
Incentive Effects of a Cut-Off Score: Optimal Contest Design with Transparent Pre-Selection
Hanbing Liu, Ningyuan Li, Weian Li +2
Shortlisting is a common and effective method for pre-selecting participants in competitive settings. To ensure fairness, a cut-off score is typically announced, allowing only cont…
Budget-Constrained Agentic Large Language Models: Intention-Based Planning for Costly Tool Use
Hanbing Liu, Chunhao Tian, Nan An +4
We study budget-constrained tool-augmented agents, where a large language model must solve multi-step tasks by invoking external tools under a strict monetary budget. We formalize…
Merging Mechanisms for Ads and Organic Items in E-commerce Platforms
Nan An, Weian Li, Qi Qi +1
In contemporary e-commerce platforms, search result pages display two types of items: ad items and organic items. Ad items are determined through an advertising auction system, whi…
Beyond Last-Click: An Optimal Mechanism for Ad Attribution
Nan An, Weian Li, Qi Qi +2
Accurate attribution for multiple platforms is critical for evaluating performance-based advertising. However, existing attribution methods rely heavily on the heuristic methods, e…
Optimal Prize Design in Parallel Rank-order Contests
Xiaotie Deng, Ningyuan Li, Weian Li +1
This paper investigates a two-stage game-theoretical model with multiple parallel rank-order contests. In this model, each contest designer sets up a contest and determines the pri…
Optimal Contest Design with Entry Restriction
Hanbing Liu, Ningyuan Li, Weian Li +2
This paper explores the design of contests involving contestants, focusing on how the designer decides on the number of contestants allowed and the prize structure with a fixed…