Related papers: Limits of Efficiency in Sequential Auctions
We initiate the study of how auction design affects the division of surplus among buyers. We propose a parsimonious measure for equity and apply it to the family of standard auctions for homogeneous goods. Our surplus-equitable mechanism is…
In practice, most auction mechanisms are not strategy-proof, so equilibrium analysis is required to predict bidding behavior. In many auctions, though, an exact equilibrium is not known and one would like to understand whether -- manually…
We study independent private values auction environments in which the auctioneer's revenue depends nonlinearly on bidders' interim winning probabilities. Our framework accommodates heterogeneity among bidders and places no ad hoc…
We study sequential procurement auctions where the sellers are provided with a ``best and final offer'' (BAFO) strategy. This strategy allows each seller $i$ to effectively ``freeze'' their price while remaining active in the auction, and…
We study the complexity of computing Bayes-Nash equilibria in single-item first-price auctions. We present the first efficient algorithms for the problem, when the bidders' values for the item are independently drawn from the same…
We study the Price of Anarchy of simultaneous first-price auctions for buyers with submodular and subadditive valuations. The current best upper bounds for the Bayesian Price of Anarchy of these auctions are e/(e-1) [Syrgkanis and Tardos…
We consider the computational complexity of computing Bayes-Nash equilibria in first-price auctions, where the bidders' values for the item are drawn from a general (possibly correlated) joint distribution. We show that when the values and…
We provide algorithms that learn simple auctions whose revenue is approximately optimal in multi-item multi-bidder settings, for a wide range of valuations including unit-demand, additive, constrained additive, XOS, and subadditive. We…
We study correlated equilibria and coarse equilibria of simple first-price single-item auctions in the simplest auction model of full information. Nash equilibria are known to always yield full efficiency and a revenue that is at least the…
We compute equilibrium strategies in multi-stage games with continuous signal and action spaces as they are widely used in the management sciences and economics. Examples include sequential sales via auctions, multi-stage elimination…
We study the computational complexity of computing Bayes-Nash equilibria in first-price auctions with discrete value distributions and discrete bidding space, under general subjective beliefs. It is known that such auctions do not always…
Motivated by sponsored search auctions, we study multi-unit auctions with budget constraints. In the mechanism we propose, Sort-Cut, understating budgets or values is weakly dominated. Since Sort-Cut's revenue is increasing in budgets and…
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…
Throttling is a popular method of budget management for online ad auctions in which the platform modulates the participation probability of an advertiser in order to smoothly spend her budget across many auctions. In this work, we…
Inspired by Internet ad auction applications, we study the problem of allocating a single item via an auction when bidders place very different values on the item. We formulate this as the problem of prior-free auction and focus on…
We study \emph{combinatorial procurement auctions}, where a buyer with a valuation function $v$ and budget $B$ wishes to buy a set of items. Each item $i$ has a cost $c_i$ and the buyer is interested in a set $S$ that maximizes $v(S)$…
Since economic mechanisms are often applied to very different instances of the same problem, it is desirable to identify mechanisms that work well in a wide range of circumstances. We pursue this goal for a position auction setting and…
Auction is applied for trade with various mechanisms. A simple but practical question is which mechanism, typically first-price or second-price auctions, is preferred from the perspective of bidders or sellers. A celebrated answer is…
Classical optimal auction theory assumes that bids reach the seller directly. We study how this picture changes when a revenue-maximizing intermediary controls access to the seller's auction. Motivated by blockchain auctions, online…
We are interested in the problem of optimal commitments in rank-and-bid based auctions, a general class of auctions that include first price and all-pay auctions as special cases. Our main contribution is a novel approach to solve for…