IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2006.05192.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Optimal Distributionally Robust Auction

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Suzdaltsev

Abstract

An indivisible object may be sold to one of $n$ agents who know their valuations of the object. The seller would like to use a revenue-maximizing mechanism but her knowledge of the valuations' distribution is scarce: she knows only the means (which may be different) and an upper bound for valuations. Valuations may be correlated. Using a constructive approach based on duality, we prove that a mechanism that maximizes the worst-case expected revenue among all deterministic dominant-strategy incentive compatible, ex post individually rational mechanisms is such that the object should be awarded to the agent with the highest linear score provided it is nonnegative. Linear scores are bidder-specific linear functions of bids. The set of optimal mechanisms includes other mechanisms but all those have to be close to the optimal linear score auction in a certain sense. When means are high, all optimal mechanisms share the linearity property. Second-price auction without a reserve is an optimal mechanism when the number of symmetric bidders is sufficiently high.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Suzdaltsev, 2020. "An Optimal Distributionally Robust Auction," Papers 2006.05192, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2006.05192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.05192
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim-Sau Chung & J.C. Ely, 2007. "Foundations of Dominant-Strategy Mechanisms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 447-476.
    2. Chaithanya Bandi & Dimitris Bertsimas, 2014. "Optimal Design for Multi-Item Auctions: A Robust Optimization Approach," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 1012-1038, November.
    3. , & , & ,, 2006. "Optimal auctions with ambiguity," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 411-438, December.
    4. Songzi Du, 2018. "Robust Mechanisms Under Common Valuation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1569-1588, September.
    5. Dirk Bergemann & Karl H. Schlag, 2012. "Pricing Without Priors," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 12, pages 405-415, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Erick Delage & Yinyu Ye, 2010. "Distributionally Robust Optimization Under Moment Uncertainty with Application to Data-Driven Problems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 595-612, June.
    7. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1988. "Full Extraction of the Surplus in Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1247-1257, November.
    8. Wolitzky, Alexander, 2016. "Mechanism design with maxmin agents: theory and an application to bilateral trade," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wanchang Zhang, 2021. "Random Double Auction: A Robust Bilateral Trading Mechanism," Papers 2105.05427, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    2. Giuseppe Lopomo & Luca Rigotti & Chris Shannon, 2021. "Uncertainty in Mechanism Design," Papers 2108.12633, arXiv.org.
    3. Halil .Ibrahim Bayrak & c{C}au{g}{i}l Koc{c}yiu{g}it & Daniel Kuhn & Mustafa c{C}elebi P{i}nar, 2022. "Distributionally Robust Optimal Allocation with Costly Verification," Papers 2211.15122, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    4. Alexander V. Kolesnikov & Fedor Sandomirskiy & Aleh Tsyvinski & Alexander P. Zimin, 2022. "Beckmann's approach to multi-item multi-bidder auctions," Papers 2203.06837, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    5. Suzdaltsev, Alex, 2022. "Distributionally robust pricing in independent private value auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    6. Shixin Wang, 2024. "Semi-Separable Mechanisms in Multi-Item Robust Screening," Papers 2408.13580, arXiv.org.
    7. He, Wei & Li, Jiangtao, 2022. "Correlation-robust auction design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Çağıl Koçyiğit & Garud Iyengar & Daniel Kuhn & Wolfram Wiesemann, 2020. "Distributionally Robust Mechanism Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 159-189, January.
    2. Suzdaltsev, Alex, 2022. "Distributionally robust pricing in independent private value auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    3. Tang, Rui & Zhang, Mu, 2021. "Maxmin implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Amine Allouah & Omar Besbes, 2020. "Prior-Independent Optimal Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4417-4432, October.
    5. Shixin Wang, 2024. "Semi-Separable Mechanisms in Multi-Item Robust Screening," Papers 2408.13580, arXiv.org.
    6. Wanchang Zhang, 2022. "Auctioning Multiple Goods without Priors," Papers 2204.13726, arXiv.org.
    7. Ju Hu & Xi Weng, 2021. "Robust persuasion of a privately informed receiver," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 909-953, October.
    8. Alex Suzdaltsev, 2020. "Distributionally Robust Pricing in Independent Private Value Auctions," Papers 2008.01618, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    9. Wanchang Zhang, 2021. "Random Double Auction: A Robust Bilateral Trading Mechanism," Papers 2105.05427, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    10. Mustafa Ç. Pınar, 2018. "Robust trading mechanisms over 0/1 polytopes," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 845-860, October.
    11. Song, Yangwei, 2018. "Efficient Implementation with Interdependent Valuations and Maxmin Agents," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 92, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Song, Yangwei, 2022. "Approximate Bayesian Implementation and Exact Maxmin Implementation: An Equivalence," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 362, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    13. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2012. "Robust Mechanism Design: An Introduction," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 1, pages 1-48, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Vinicius Carrasco & Vitor Farinha Luz & Paulo K. Monteiro & Humberto Moreira, 2019. "Robust mechanisms: the curvature case," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(1), pages 203-222, July.
    15. Laohakunakorn, Krittanai & Levy, Gilat & Razin, Ronny, 2019. "Private and common value auctions with ambiguity over correlation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101410, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Krähmer, Daniel, 2012. "Auction design with endogenously correlated buyer types," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 118-141.
    17. Guo, Huiyi, 2024. "Collusion-proof mechanisms for full surplus extraction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 263-284.
    18. Lopomo, Giuseppe & Rigotti, Luca & Shannon, Chris, 2022. "Uncertainty and robustness of surplus extraction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    19. Guo, Huiyi, 2019. "Mechanism design with ambiguous transfers: An analysis in finite dimensional naive type spaces," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 76-105.
    20. Bhattacharya, Vivek & Manuelli, Lucas & Straub, Ludwig, 2018. "Imperfect public monitoring with a fear of signal distortion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 1-37.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2006.05192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.