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Related papers: Auction Design with Data-Driven Misspecifications

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In this paper, we study the problem of learning to bid in repeated first-price auctions with budget constraints. In each period, the decision maker needs to submit a bid to win the auction and maximize the total collected reward, subject to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Zeng Fu , Jiashuo Jiang , Yuan Zhou

Auction theory traditionally assumes that bidders' valuation distributions are known to the auctioneer, such as in the celebrated, revenue-optimal Myerson auction. However, this theory does not describe how the auctioneer comes to possess…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2014-07-11 Avrim Blum , Yishay Mansour , Jamie Morgenstern

Motivated by online advertising auctions, we study auction design in repeated auctions played by simple Artificial Intelligence algorithms (Q-learning). We find that first-price auctions with no additional feedback lead to tacit-collusive…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-02-15 Martino Banchio , Andrzej Skrzypacz

Investigating potential purchases is often a substantial investment under uncertainty. Standard market designs, such as simultaneous or English auctions, compound this with uncertainty about the price a bidder will have to pay in order to…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-12-22 Robert Kleinberg , Bo Waggoner , E. Glen Weyl

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…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2021-10-19 Sosung Baik , Sung-Ha Hwang

Traditionally, the Bayesian optimal auction design problem has been considered either when the bidder values are i.i.d., or when each bidder is individually identifiable via her value distribution. The latter is a reasonable approach when…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-07-11 Nikhil R. Devanur , Zhiyi Huang , Christos-Alexandros Psomas

Bidding is a key element of search advertising, but the variation in bidders' valuations and strategies is often overlooked. Disclosing bid information helps uncover this heterogeneity and enables platforms to tailor their disclosure…

General Economics · Economics 2024-10-10 Zhu Mingxi , Song Michelle

We study the problem of selling a good to a group of bidders with interdependent values in a prior-free setting. Each bidder has a signal that can take one of $k$ different values, and her value for the good is a weakly increasing function…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-07-21 Vasilis Gkatzelis , Rishi Patel , Emmanouil Pountourakis , Daniel Schoepflin

Modern ad auctions allow advertisers to target more specific segments of the user population. Unfortunately, this is not always in the best interest of the ad platform. In this paper, we examine the following basic question in the context…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-07-16 Ashwinkumar Badanidiyuru , Kshipra Bhawalkar , Haifeng Xu

We provide efficient estimation methods for first- and second-price auctions under independent (asymmetric) private values and partial observability. Given a finite set of observations, each comprising the identity of the winner and the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-05 Yeshwanth Cherapanamjeri , Constantinos Daskalakis , Andrew Ilyas , Manolis Zampetakis

We study the revenue comparison problem of auctions when the seller has a maxmin expected utility preference. The seller holds a set of priors around some reference belief, interpreted as an approximating model of the true probability law…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-11-24 Sosung Baik , Sung-Ha Hwang

Sellers often prescreen potential bidders, restricting participation to a select group of capable participants. Recent advances in machine learning and generative AI make this strategy increasingly viable by enabling the cost-effective…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-08-25 Yanwei Sun , Fupeng Sun , Chiwei Yan , Jiahua Wu

We study a class of iterative combinatorial auctions which can be viewed as subgradient descent methods for the problem of pricing bundles to balance supply and demand. We provide concrete convergence rates for auctions in this class,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-06-01 Jacob Abernethy , Sébastien Lahaie , Matus Telgarsky

We consider an environment where sellers compete over buyers. All sellers are a-priori identical and strategically signal buyers about the product they sell. In a setting motivated by on-line advertising in display ad exchanges, where firms…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2012-03-30 Gleb Polevoy , Rann Smorodinsky , Moshe Tennenholtz

Auctions are important mechanisms extensively implemented in various markets, e.g., search engines' keyword auctions, antique auctions, etc. Finding an optimal auction mechanism is extremely difficult due to the constraints of imperfect…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-28 Jiayin Liu , Chenglong Zhang

As autobidding systems increasingly dominate online advertising auctions, characterizing their long-term dynamical behavior is brought to the fore. In this paper, we examine the dynamics of autobidders who optimize value subject to a…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-11 Ioannis Anagnostides , Ian Gemp , Georgios Piliouras , Kelly Spendlove

We propose and study a novel mechanism design setup where each bidder holds two kinds of private information: (1) type variable, which can be misreported; (2) information variable, which the bidder may want to conceal or partially reveal,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-01-31 Jibang Wu , Ashwinkumar Badanidiyuru , Haifeng Xu

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…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2022-02-16 Ethan Che

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-04-30 Darrell Hoy , Kamal Jain , Christopher A. Wilkens

Auctions have been proposed as a way to provide economic incentives for primary users to dynamically allocate unused spectrum to other users in need of it. Previously proposed schemes do not take into account the fact that the power…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2014-12-24 Deepan Palguna , David J. Love , Ilya Pollak