The Better Half of Selling Separately

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that separate selling of two independent goods can achieve a significant portion of the optimal revenue, improving previous bounds, especially under the Myerson regularity condition.

Contribution

It provides improved revenue guarantees for separate selling of two goods, surpassing earlier known bounds, with specific results under regularity assumptions.

Findings

Separate selling yields at least 62% of optimal revenue.

Under Myerson regularity, revenue is at least 73%.

Improves previous 50% revenue guarantee.

Abstract

Separate selling of two independent goods is shown to yield at least 62% of the optimal revenue, and at least 73% when the goods satisfy the Myerson regularity condition. This improves the 50% result of Hart and Nisan (2017, originally circulated in 2012).