On the Near-Optimality of The Reverse Deferred Acceptance Algorithm

This mathematics honors thesis provides an analysis of the optimality of the “Reverse Deferred Acceptance Algorithm” created by Paul Milgrom and Illya Segal for the Federal Communications Commission auction for spectrum licenses. We begin by first providing a general literature review of combinatorial auctions, including algorithmic attempts at solving such optimization problems. A description and an analysis of the reverse deferred acceptance mechanism created by Milgrom and Segal follows. While the mechanism has many interesting economic properties, we focus primarily on the algorithmic properties of the mechanism.