Semi-discrete multi-to -one dimensional variational problems

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Auteurs principaux: Halim, Omar Abdul, Omarov, Daniyar, Pass, Brendan
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Halim, Omar Abdul
Omarov, Daniyar
Pass, Brendan
author_facet Halim, Omar Abdul
Omarov, Daniyar
Pass, Brendan
contents We study a class of semi-discrete variational problems that arise in economic matching and game theory, where agents with continuous attributes are matched to a finite set of outcomes with a one dimensional structure. Such problems appear in applications including Cournot-Nash equilibria, and hedonic pricing, and can be formulated as problems involving optimal transport between spaces of unequal dimensions. In our discrete strategy space setting, we establish analogues of results developed for a continuum of strategies in \cite{nenna2020variational}, ensuring solutions have a particularly simple structure under certain conditions. This has important numerical consequences, as it is natural to discretize when numerically computing solutions. We leverage our results to develop efficient algorithms for these problems which scale significantly better than standard optimal transport solvers, particularly when the number of discrete outcomes is large, provided our conditions are satisfied. We also establish rigorous convergence guarantees for these algorithms. We illustrate the advantages of our approach by solving a range of numerical examples; in many of these our new solvers outperform alternatives by a considerable margin.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_09490
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Semi-discrete multi-to -one dimensional variational problems
Halim, Omar Abdul
Omarov, Daniyar
Pass, Brendan
Optimization and Control
Numerical Analysis
We study a class of semi-discrete variational problems that arise in economic matching and game theory, where agents with continuous attributes are matched to a finite set of outcomes with a one dimensional structure. Such problems appear in applications including Cournot-Nash equilibria, and hedonic pricing, and can be formulated as problems involving optimal transport between spaces of unequal dimensions. In our discrete strategy space setting, we establish analogues of results developed for a continuum of strategies in \cite{nenna2020variational}, ensuring solutions have a particularly simple structure under certain conditions. This has important numerical consequences, as it is natural to discretize when numerically computing solutions. We leverage our results to develop efficient algorithms for these problems which scale significantly better than standard optimal transport solvers, particularly when the number of discrete outcomes is large, provided our conditions are satisfied. We also establish rigorous convergence guarantees for these algorithms. We illustrate the advantages of our approach by solving a range of numerical examples; in many of these our new solvers outperform alternatives by a considerable margin.
title Semi-discrete multi-to -one dimensional variational problems
topic Optimization and Control
Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09490