用AI搜索发现随机报价机制最差效率比超2.07,刷新理论下界。
A New Lower Bound for the Random Offerer Mechanism in Bilateral Trade using AI-Guided Evolutionary Search
- 借助AI进化算法探索价值分布空间,寻找最坏情况
- 发现新反例使效率比下界提升至2.0749,突破此前2.02
- 适用于机制设计、拍卖理论研究者,关注机制性能极限
经典的Myerson-Satterthwaite定理表明,在双边交易中,不存在同时满足完全效率、贝叶斯激励相容和预算平衡的机制。这引出核心问题:一个贝叶斯激励相容且预算平衡的机制,其可实现的交易收益(GFT)能多接近最优效率(第一最佳,FB)?最优机制通常复杂且高度依赖分布,难以直接刻画。因此,学界多分析简化机制如随机报价(RO)机制,并建立相对于第一最佳的常数倍保证。一个重要未解问题是:RO机制在最坏情况下的性能与第一最佳效率的比值。尽管曾有猜想该比值不超过2,但近期研究已证其可大于2,Babaioff等给出约2.02的例子。本文使用AlphaEvolve——一种基于AI的进化搜索框架,系统探索价值分布空间,识别出新的最坏情况实例,将该比值下界提升至2.0749。这一结果确立了随机报价机制最差性能的新理论下界,揭示了其效率差距比此前认知更显著。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The celebrated Myerson--Satterthwaite theorem shows that in bilateral trade, no mechanism can be simultaneously fully efficient, Bayesian incentive compatible (BIC), and budget balanced (BB). This naturally raises the question of how closely the gains from trade (GFT) achievable by a BIC and BB mechanism can approximate the first-best (fully efficient) benchmark. The optimal BIC and BB mechanism is typically complex and highly distribution-dependent, making it difficult to characterize directly. Consequently, much of the literature analyzes simpler mechanisms such as the Random-Offerer (RO) mechanism and establishes constant-factor guarantees relative to the first-best GFT. An important open question concerns the worst-case performance of the RO mechanism relative to first-best (FB) efficiency. While it was originally hypothesized that the approximation ratio $\frac{\text{GFT}_{\text{FB}}}{\text{GFT}_{\text{RO}}}$ is bounded by $2$, recent work provided counterexamples to this conjecture: Cai et al. proved that the ratio can be strictly larger than $2$, and Babaioff et al. exhibited an explicit example with ratio approximately $2.02$. In this work, we employ AlphaEvolve, an AI-guided evolutionary search framework, to explore the space of value distributions. We identify a new worst-case instance that yields an improved lower bound of $\frac{\text{GFT}_{\text{FB}}}{\text{GFT}_{\text{RO}}} \ge \textbf{2.0749}$. This establishes a new lower bound on the worst-case performance of the Random-Offerer mechanism, demonstrating a wider efficiency gap than previously known.
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