2024/08/21 by Wei He, Jiangtao Li, He, Wei +3
Decision Sciences · Mathematics · #Auction Theory and Applications #Business #Combinatorics #Common value auction #Computer Science and Game Theory (cs.GT) #Computer science #Economics #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Economics and business #Mathematics #Microeconomics #Rank (graph theory) #Theoretical Economics (econ.TH)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.12001
openalex publication_date 2024/08/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a combinatorial ascending auction that is "approximately" optimal, requiring minimal rationality to achieve this level of optimality, and is robust to strategic and distributional uncertainties. Specifically, the auction is rank-guaranteed, meaning that for any menu M and any valuation profile, the ex-post revenue is guaranteed to be at least as high as the highest revenue achievable from feasible allocations, taking the (|M|+ 1)th-highest valuation for each bundle as the price. Our analysis highlights a crucial aspect of combinatorial auction design, namely, the design of menus. We provide simple and approximately optimal menus in various settings.