Optimizing Expected Utility in a Multinomial Logit Model with Position   Bias and Social Influence
  Motivated by applications in retail, online advertising, and cultural markets, this paper studies how to find the optimal assortment and positioning of products subject to a capacity constraint. We prove that the optimal assortment and positioning can be found in polynomial time for a multinomial logit model capturing utilities, position bias, and social influence. Moreover, in a dynamic market, we show that the policy that applies the optimal assortment and positioning and leverages social influence outperforms in expectation any policy not using social influence. 
Andres Abeliuk, Gerardo Berbeglia, Manuel Cebrian, and Pascal Van   Hentenryck
cs.DS