Maximizing revenue in the presence of intermediaries
summary
Proposal of an intermediate-proof mechanism that guarantees seller revenue within a constant factor of welfare for any demand structure when valuations are lambda-regular and intermediaries satisfy buyer-disconnectability tau. For K identical items it groups buyers, posts per-group prices and randomly allocates excess demand; for heterogeneous items it builds a convex program and uses duality to set GSP-like prices. The analysis yields explicit factors involving tau, C_lambda and a 1/2 term and generalizes the 1/e trade probability for profit-maximizing brokers.
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