IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/87419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Valuation compressions in VCG-based combinatorial auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Dütting, Paul
  • Henzinger, Monika
  • Starnberger, Martin

Abstract

The focus of classic mechanism design has been on truthful direct-revelation mechanisms. In the context of combinatorial auctions the truthful direct-revelation mechanism that maximizes social welfare is the VCG mechanism. For many valuation spaces computing the allocation and payments of the VCG mechanism, however, is a computationally hard problem. We thus study the performance of the VCG mechanism when bidders are forced to choose bids from a subspace of the valuation space for which the VCG outcome can be computed efficiently. We prove improved upper bounds on the welfare loss for restrictions to additive bids and upper and lower bounds for restrictions to non-additive bids. These bounds show that increased expressiveness can give rise to additional equilibria of poorer efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Dütting, Paul & Henzinger, Monika & Starnberger, Martin, 2018. "Valuation compressions in VCG-based combinatorial auctions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87419, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:87419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87419/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sergiu Hart & Andreu Mas-Colell, 2013. "A Simple Adaptive Procedure Leading To Correlated Equilibrium," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Simple Adaptive Strategies From Regret-Matching to Uncoupled Dynamics, chapter 2, pages 17-46, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Edward Clarke, 1971. "Multipart pricing of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 17-33, September.
    3. Nisan,Noam & Roughgarden,Tim & Tardos,Eva & Vazirani,Vijay V. (ed.), 2007. "Algorithmic Game Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521872829, October.
    4. Foster, Dean P. & Vohra, Rakesh V., 1997. "Calibrated Learning and Correlated Equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 21(1-2), pages 40-55, October.
    5. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    6. Milgrom, Paul, 2010. "Simplified mechanisms with an application to sponsored-search auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 62-70, September.
    7. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-631, July.
    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. Paul Dütting & Felix Fischer & David C. Parkes, 2019. "Expressiveness and Robustness of First-Price Position Auctions," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 196-211, February.
    2. Feldman, Michal & Shabtai, Galia, 2023. "Simultaneous 2nd price item auctions with no-underbidding," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 316-340.
    3. Paul Dütting & Thomas Kesselheim & Éva Tardos, 2021. "Algorithms as Mechanisms: The Price of Anarchy of Relax and Round," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 317-335, February.

    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. Mishra, Debasis & Parkes, David C., 2007. "Ascending price Vickrey auctions for general valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 335-366, January.
    2. Robert Kleinberg & Bo Waggoner & E. Glen Weyl, 2016. "Descending Price Optimally Coordinates Search," Papers 1603.07682, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2016.
    3. Chun, Youngsub & Yengin, Duygu, 2017. "Welfare lower bounds and strategy-proofness in the queueing problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 462-476.
    4. Lehmann, Benny & Lehmann, Daniel & Nisan, Noam, 2006. "Combinatorial auctions with decreasing marginal utilities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 270-296, May.
    5. Lawrence M. Ausubel, 2006. "An Efficient Dynamic Auction for Heterogeneous Commodities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 602-629, June.
    6. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Paul Milgrom, 2004. "Ascending Proxy Auctions," Discussion Papers 03-035, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Paul Milgrom, 2012. "System and Method for a Hybrid Clock and Proxy Auction," Papers of Peter Cramton 12acmhc, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    8. Gul, Faruk & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1999. "Walrasian Equilibrium with Gross Substitutes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 95-124, July.
    9. Mishra, Debasis & Talman, Dolf, 2010. "Characterization of the Walrasian equilibria of the assignment model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 6-20, January.
    10. Milgrom, Paul, 2010. "Simplified mechanisms with an application to sponsored-search auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 62-70, September.
    11. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2020. "Improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2020-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    12. Bian, Zheyong & Liu, Xiang, 2019. "Mechanism design for first-mile ridesharing based on personalized requirements part I: Theoretical analysis in generalized scenarios," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 147-171.
    13. Vohra, Rakesh V., 2015. "Combinatorial Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    14. Núñez, Marina & Rafels, Carlos & Robles, Francisco, 2020. "A mechanism for package allocation problems with gross substitutes," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 6-14.
    15. Zhou, Yu & Serizawa, Shigehiro, 2023. "Multi-object auction design beyond quasi-linearity: Leading examples," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 210-228.
    16. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2007. "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 242-259, March.
    17. Patrick Hummel, 2018. "Hybrid mechanisms for Vickrey–Clarke–Groves and generalized second-price bids," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(1), pages 331-350, March.
    18. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2006. "Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001022, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Yokoo, Makoto & Sakurai, Yuko & Matsubara, Shigeo, 2004. "The effect of false-name bids in combinatorial auctions: new fraud in internet auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 174-188, January.
    20. Raghavan, Madhav, 2020. "Influence in private-goods allocation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 14-28.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    algorithms; economics; theory; simplified mechanisms; combinatorial auctions with item bidding; price of anarchy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    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:ehl:lserod:87419. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.