Related papers: Optimal commitments in auctions with incomplete in…
We study the optimal auction design problem when bidders' preferences follow the maxmin expected utility model. We suppose that each bidder's set of priors consists of beliefs close to the seller's belief, where "closeness" is defined by a…
We study multi-unit auctions in which bidders have limited knowledge of opponent strategies and values. We characterize optimal prior-free bids; these bids minimize the maximal loss in expected utility resulting from uncertainty surrounding…
In many first-price auctions, bidders face considerable strategic uncertainty: They cannot perfectly anticipate the other bidders' bidding behavior. We propose a model in which bidders do not know the entire distribution of opponent bids…
We study the optimal behavior of a bidder in a real-time auction subject to the requirement that a specified collections of heterogeneous items be acquired within given time constraints. The problem facing this bidder is cast as a…
Simultaneous ascending auctions present agents with the exposure problem: bidding to acquire a bundle risks the possibility of obtaining an undesired subset of the goods. Auction theory provides little guidance for dealing with this…
We study a seller who sells a single good to multiple bidders with uncertainty over the joint distribution of bidders' valuations, as well as bidders' higher-order beliefs about their opponents. The seller only knows the (possibly…
Many auction settings implicitly or explicitly require that bidders are treated equally ex-ante. This may be because discrimination is philosophically or legally impermissible, or because it is practically difficult to implement or…
We consider the classical linear assignment problem, and we introduce new auction algorithms for its optimal and suboptimal solution. The algorithms are founded on duality theory, and are related to ideas of competitive bidding by persons…
This paper studies optimal auction design when valuations depend endogenously on post-auction collaboration between the seller and the winning bidder. Both parties exert non-contractible efforts after the auction, generating a double moral…
We model a procurement scenario in which two \textit{imperfect} bidders act simultaneously on behalf of a single buyer, a configuration common in display advertising and referred to as \textit{side-by-side bidding} but largely unexplored in…
We consider the problem of the optimization of bidding strategies in prior-dependent revenue-maximizing auctions, when the seller fixes the reserve prices based on the bid distributions. Our study is done in the setting where one bidder is…
In a multiple-object auction, every bidder tries to win as many objects as possible with a bidding algorithm. This paper studies position-randomized auctions, which form a special class of multiple-object auctions where a bidding algorithm…
We derive optimal strategies for a bidding agent that participates in multiple, simultaneous second-price auctions with perfect substitutes. We prove that, if everyone else bids locally in a single auction, the global bidder should always…
Learning to bid in repeated first-price auctions is a fundamental problem at the interface of game theory and machine learning, which has seen a recent surge in interest due to the transition of display advertising to first-price auctions.…
The first-price auction is popular in practice for its simplicity and transparency. Moreover, its potential virtues grow in complex settings where incentive compatible auctions may generate little or no revenue. Unfortunately, the…
We study buyer-optimal procurement mechanisms when quality is contractible. When some costs are borne by every participant of a procurement auction regardless of winning, the classic analysis should be amended. We show that an optimal…
This paper examines knapsack auctions as a method to solve the knapsack problem with incomplete information, where object values are private and sizes are public. We analyze three auction types-uniform price (UP), discriminatory price (DP),…
We study the efficiency of sequential first-price item auctions at (subgame perfect) equilibrium. This auction format has recently attracted much attention, with previous work establishing positive results for unit-demand valuations and…
First-price auctions are one of the most popular mechanisms for selling goods and services, with applications ranging from display advertising to timber sales. Unlike their close cousin, the second-price auction, first-price auctions do not…
In a sequential auction with multiple bidding agents, it is highly challenging to determine the ordering of the items to sell in order to maximize the revenue due to the fact that the autonomy and private information of the agents heavily…