Essays in Electronic Commerce: Game Theoretic Analysis and Optimization

This dissertation is a collection of three essays in theoretical modeling for Electron Commerce (EC). We apply state of art game theoretic modeling and mathematical optimization techniques in problems arising in electronic commerce. The topics include sponsored search auctions, reverse auctions and double auctions. The first problem deals with the design of revenue maximizing procurement auctions with divisible quantities in a setting where both the marginal cost and the production capacity are private information of the suppliers. The second problem deals with the design of the optimal sponsored search auctions used by the internet search service providers such as Google and Yahoo!. The third problem studied in this dissertation is the design and analysis of a simple online exchange for matching impatient demand with patient supply.