English

Approximating Auction Equilibria with Reinforcement Learning

General Economics 2024-10-21 v1 Artificial Intelligence Economics

Abstract

Traditional methods for computing equilibria in auctions become computationally intractable as auction complexity increases, particularly in multi-item and dynamic auctions. This paper introduces a self-play based reinforcement learning approach that employs advanced algorithms such as Proximal Policy Optimization and Neural Fictitious Self-Play to approximate Bayes-Nash equilibria. This framework allows for continuous action spaces, high-dimensional information states, and delayed payoffs. Through self-play, these algorithms can learn robust and near-optimal bidding strategies in auctions with known equilibria, including those with symmetric and asymmetric valuations, private and interdependent values, and multi-round auctions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.13960,
  title  = {Approximating Auction Equilibria with Reinforcement Learning},
  author = {Pranjal Rawat},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.13960},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:26:30.973Z