The generalized Vickrey auction (GVA) is a strategy-proof combinatorial auction, in which truthful bidding is the optimal strategy for an agent. In this paper we address a fundamental problem with the GVA, which is that it requires agents to compute and reveal their values for all combinations of items. This can be very difficult for bounded-rational agents with limited or costly computation. W...

Recall from the previous lecture that in combinatorial auction each bidder has an associated real-valued valuation function V defined for each subset of items S. An allocation of items S1, S2, . . . , Sn among the bidders with valuation function V1, V2, . . . , Vn respectively is socially efficient if the allocation maximizes the social welfare ∑ i Vi(Si). Combinatorial auction is a very genera...

In this paper we evaluate time and space complexity of combinatorial auction solver. The application of combinatorial auction optimization problem in the area of telecommunication is presented. Using random problem instance generator we experimentally measured execution times and the amount of memory used for wide range of optimization problem sizes given as number of goods and number of bids. ...

It is a common belief that combinatorial auctions provide good solutions to resource-allocation in multiple-object markets with synergies. In this work we adopt a pragmatic approach to examining the revenue bounds on combinatorial and simultaneous auctions. The theoretical bounds from our previous work utilize a large number of bidders in order to show that combinatorial auctions yield a higher...

In July 2000 the FCC issued the rules to govern the upcoming 700MHz auction. The rules are a departure from the auction architectures previously used by the FCC. Rather than all bidding only on individual licenses, the auction participants will be able to bid on combinations or packages of licenses. Several combinatorial auction processes exist in the literature and testing demonstrates that su...

Combinatorial auctions allow for more expressive bidding in which participants can submit package bids with logical constraints that limit allowable outcomes. This type of auction can be useful when participants' values are complementary or when participants have production and financial constraints. However, combinatorial auctions are currently rare in practice. The main problems confronted in...

In the past two decades, telecommunications has turned into a highly competitive industry where companies are competing to buy valuable spectrum. Following the successful Personal Communications Services (PCS) Auction conducted by the US Federal Communications Commission in 1994, auctions have replaced traditional ways of allocating valuable radio spectrum such as comparative hearings (sometime...

The word “auction” generally refers to a mechanism for allocating one or more resources to one or more parties (or bidders). Generally, once the allocation is determined, some amount of money changes hands; the precise monetary transfers are determined by the auction process. While in some auction protocols, such as the English auction, bidders repeatedly increase their bids in an attempt to ou...

Though the VCG auction assumes a central place in the mechanism design literature, there are a number of reasons for favouring iterative combinatorial auction designs. Several promising ascending auction formats have been developed throughout the past few years based on primal-dual algorithms and linear programming theory. Prices are interpreted as a feasible dual solution and the provisional a...

Combinatorial auctions are currently becoming a common practice in industrial procurement, allowing bidders (sellers of goods and services in the procurement setting) to avoid the risk of selling good or service bundles that are incomplete, inefficient, or excessively expensive to deliver. Two major concerns in combinatorial auction design are the revelation or discovery of market price informa...