题目：Characterization of the monopolist's profit-maximization problem as a free-boundary problem
报告人：张霜剑（复旦大学）
时间：2024年7月1日（星期一）, 14:00-15:00
地点：正心楼716
摘要：The principal-agent problem is one of the central problems in microeconomics with many applications. Existence, uniqueness, convexity/concavity, regularity, and characterization of the solutions have been widely studied after Mirrlees and Spence in the 1970s. For multidimensional spaces of agents and products, Rochet and Choné (Econometrica, 1998) reformulated this problem to a concave maximization over the set of convex functions, by assuming agent preferences combine bilinearity in the product and agent parameters with a quasilinear sensitivity to prices. We characterize solutions to this problem by identifying a dual minimization problem. This duality allows us to reduce the solution of the square example of Rochet-Choné to a novel free boundary problem, giving the first analytical description of an overlooked market segment, where the regularity built by Caffarelli-Lions plays a crucial role —— an extension of their regularity work to the quasilinear case is also recently studied. The results profoundly connect with the Optimal Transport theory, a powerful tool with potential applications in many areas. This talk contains my joint work with Robert J. McCann and Cale Rankin.
