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arXiv · 2610.06547

An Improved Upper Bound for the Random-Offerer Mechanism in Bilateral Trade via Recursive Hard Instances

Heyang Shang·Jing Chen
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Abstract

We study the worst-case efficiency of the random-offerer mechanism in bilateral trade relative to the first-best gains from trade. We construct a family of independent buyer value and seller cost distributions whose ratio converges to $0.436943488\ldots$, improving the previous upper bound of $0.460242308\ldots$. Our construction combines recursively nested seller distributions with downward transport of buyer values. The recursive structure allows contributions from different scales to accumulate, leading to stronger hard instances. We analyze this construction through a recurrence and obtain an analytic characterization of the limiting constant.

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Heyang Shang, Jing Chen. 2026-10-05. An Improved Upper Bound for the Random-Offerer Mechanism in Bilateral Trade via Recursive Hard Instances. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06547

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