Related papers: Computationally Feasible VCG Mechanisms
Combinatorial auctions (CA) are a well-studied area in algorithmic mechanism design. However, contrary to the standard model, empirical studies suggest that a bidder's valuation often does not depend solely on the goods assigned to him. For…
In markets such as digital advertising auctions, bidders want to maximize value rather than payoff. This is different to the utility functions typically assumed in auction theory and leads to different strategies and outcomes. We refer to…
We explore the approximation power of deterministic obviously strategy-proof mechanisms in auctions, where the objective is welfare maximization. A trivial ascending auction on the grand bundle guarantees an approximation of $\min\{m,n\}$…
Using mechanised reasoning we prove that combinatorial Vickrey auctions are soundly specified in that they associate a unique outcome (allocation and transfers) to any valid input (bids). Having done so, we auto-generate verified executable…
Truthfulness is fragile and demanding. It is oftentimes computationally harder than solving the original problem. Even worse, truthfulness can be utterly destroyed by small uncertainties in a mechanism's outcome. One obstacle is that…
In this paper we show that payment computation essentially does not present any obstacle in designing truthful mechanisms, even for multi-parameter domains, and even when we can only call the allocation rule once. We present a general…
Distributed aggregative optimization methods are gaining increased traction due to their ability to address cooperative control and optimization problems, where the objective function of each agent depends not only on its own decision…
Existing auction mechanisms are vulnerable to bidder collusion, which substantially degrades revenue and non-colluder welfare. To design truthful mechanisms resilient to collusion, we introduce a novel approach that leverages a machine…
While the classic Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism ensures incentive compatibility for a static one-shot game, it does not appear to be feasible to construct a dominant truth-telling mechanism for agents that are stochastic dynamic systems.…
We study a novel class of mechanism design problems in which the outcomes are constrained by the payments. This basic class of mechanism design problems captures many common economic situations, and yet it has not been studied, to our…
It is typically expected that if a mechanism is truthful, then the agents would, indeed, truthfully report their private information. But why would an agent believe that the mechanism is truthful? We wish to design truthful mechanisms,…
Auctions in which agents' payoffs are random variables have received increased attention in recent years. In particular, recent work in algorithmic mechanism design has produced mechanisms employing internal randomization, partly in…
Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanisms are often used to allocate tasks to selfish and rational agents. VCG mechanisms are incentive compatible, direct mechanisms that are efficient (i.e., maximise social utility) and individually rational…
A longstanding open problem in Algorithmic Mechanism Design is to design computationally-efficient truthful mechanisms for (approximately) maximizing welfare in combinatorial auctions with submodular bidders. The first such mechanism was…
Internet ad auctions have evolved from a few lines of text to richer informational layouts that include images, sitelinks, videos, etc. Ads in these new formats occupy varying amounts of space, and an advertiser can provide multiple…
Sponsored search auctions constitute one of the most successful applications of microeconomic mechanisms. In mechanism design, auctions are usually designed to incentivize advertisers to bid their truthful valuations and to assure both the…
A sequence of recent studies show that even in the simple setting of a single seller and a single buyer with additive, independent valuations over $m$ items, the revenue-maximizing mechanism is prohibitively complex. This problem has been…
With the growth of networks, promoting products through social networks has become an important problem. For auctions in social networks, items are needed to be sold to agents in a network, where each agent can bid and also diffuse the sale…
The principal problem in algorithmic mechanism design is in merging the incentive constraints imposed by selfish behavior with the algorithmic constraints imposed by computational intractability. This field is motivated by the observation…
We consider an outsourcing problem where a software agent procures multiple services from providers with uncertain reliabilities to complete a computational task before a strict deadline. The service consumer requires a procurement strategy…