A Note on Selling Optimally Two Uniformly Distributed Goods

We provide a new, much simplified and straightforward proof to a result of Pavlov [2011] regarding the revenue maximizing mechanism for selling two goods with uniformly i.i.d. valuations over intervals $[c,c+1]$, to an additive buyer. This is done by explicitly defining optimal dual solutions to a relaxed version of the problem, where the convexity requirement for the bidder’s utility has been dropped. Their optimality comes directly from their structure, through the use of exact complementarity. For $c=0$ and $c\ge 0.092$ it turns out that the corresponding optimal primal solution is a feasible selling mechanism, thus the initial relaxation comes without a loss, and revenue maximality follows. However, for $0<c<0.092$ that’s not the case, providing the first clear example where relaxing convexity provably does not come for free, even in a two-item regularly i.i.d. setting.