Dynamic allocation and pricing: A mechanism design approach

This paper illustrates the benefits of applying mechanism design techniques to questions in revenue management, in particular to dynamic allocation and pricing problems. It is demonstrated that the solution to a sequential stochastic assignment problem under complete information can also be implemented under incomplete information by a variation of the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism. More generally, we argue that the mechanism design focus on implementable allocations rather than on prices yields many valuable insights about dynamic RM models. Finally, we also briefly survey some of the recent literature on dynamic mechanism design.