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Truthful Outcomes from Non-Truthful Position Auctions

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  • Dütting, Paul
  • Fischer, Felix
  • Parkes, David C.

Abstract

We exhibit a property of the VCG mechanism that can help explain the surprising rarity with which it is used even in settings with unit demand: a relative lack of robustness to inaccuracies in the choice of its parameters. For a standard position auction environment in which the auctioneer may not know the precise relative values of the positions, we show that under both complete and incomplete information a non-truthful mechanism supports the truthful outcome of the VCG mechanism for a wider range of these values than the VCG mechanism itself. The result for complete information concerns the generalized second-price mechanism and lends additional theoretical support to the use of this mechanism in practice. Particularly interesting from a technical perspective is the case of incomplete information, where a surprising combinatorial equivalence helps us to avoid confrontation with an unwieldy differential equation.

Suggested Citation

  • Dütting, Paul & Fischer, Felix & Parkes, David C., 2016. "Truthful Outcomes from Non-Truthful Position Auctions," Scholarly Articles 32227268, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:32227268
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
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    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. Dütting, Paul & Fischer, Felix & Parkes, David C., 2019. "Expressiveness and robustness of first-price position auctions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85877, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. 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.

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