On stackelberg pricing with computationally bounded customers

In Stackelberg pricing a leader sets prices for items to maximize revenue from a follower purchasing a feasible subset of items. We consider computationally bounded followers who cannot optimize exactly over the range of all feasible subsets, but who apply publicly known algorithms to determine the items to purchase. This corresponds to general multidimensional pricing when customers cannot optimize their valuation functions efficiently but still aim to act rationally to the best of their ability. We consider two versions of this novel type of pricing problem. In the MIn-KNAPSACK variant items are weighted objects and the follower seeks to purchase a min-cost selection of objects of some bounded weight. When he uses a greedy 2-approximation algorithm, we provide a polynomial-time (2+ε) -approximation algorithm for the leader's revenue maximization problem based on so-called near-uniform price assignments. We also prove the problem to be strongly NP-hard. In the SET-COVER variant items are subsets of some ground set which the follower seeks to cover. When he uses a standard primal-dual approach, we prove that exact revenue maximization is possible in polynomial time when elements have frequency 2 (VERTEX-COVER variant). This stands in sharp contrast to APX-hardness for the problem with elements of frequency 3. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2012