6,099 research outputs found

    An Agent Based Market Design Methodology for Combinatorial Auctions

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    Auction mechanisms have attracted a great deal of interest and have been used in diverse e-marketplaces. In particular, combinatorial auctions have the potential to play an important role in electronic transactions. Therefore, diverse combinatorial auction market types have been proposed to satisfy market needs. These combinatorial auction types have diverse market characteristics, which require an effective market design approach. This study proposes a comprehensive and systematic market design methodology for combinatorial auctions based on three phases: market architecture design, auction rule design, and winner determination design. A market architecture design is for designing market architecture types by Backward Chain Reasoning. Auction rules design is to design transaction rules for auctions. The specific auction process type is identified by the Backward Chain Reasoning process. Winner determination design is about determining the decision model for selecting optimal bids and auctioneers. Optimization models are identified by Forward Chain Reasoning. Also, we propose an agent based combinatorial auction market design system using Backward and Forward Chain Reasoning. Then we illustrate a design process for the general n-bilateral combinatorial auction market. This study serves as a guideline for practical implementation of combinatorial auction markets design.Combinatorial Auction, Market Design Methodology, Market Architecture Design, Auction Rule Design, Winner Determination Design, Agent-Based System

    A Review of the L-Band Auction

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    In May 2008, Ofcom’s L-band auction concluded. This was Ofcom’s second combinatorial clock auction. The auction used an innovative format intended to encourage an efficient assignment of the 17 lots. Eight bidders competed for the lots. In sharp contrast to the first combinatorial clock auction, the 10-40 GHz auction, in which each of the ten bidders won spectrum, in the L-band auction there was a single winner—Qualcomm won all the lots. This note briefly reviews the auction.Auctions, spectrum auctions, market design, package auction, clock auction, combinatorial auction

    A Review of the 10-40 GHz Auction

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    In February 2008, Ofcom’s 10-40 GHz auction concluded. This was Ofcom’s first combinatorial clock auction. The auction used an innovative format intended to encourage an efficient assignment of the 27 lots. Each of the ten bidders won one or more lots. All 27 lots were assigned. This note briefly reviews the auction.Auctions, spectrum auctions, market design, package auction, clock auction, combinatorial auction

    The Clock-Proxy Auction: A Practical Combinatorial Auction Design

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    We propose the clock-proxy auction as a practical means for auctioning many related items. A clock auction phase is followed by a last-and-final proxy round. The approach combines the simple and transparent price discovery of the clock auction with the efficiency of the proxy auction. Linear pricing is maintained as long as possible, but then is abandoned in the proxy round to improve efficiency and enhance seller revenues. The approach has many advantages over the simultaneous ascending auction. In particular, the clock-proxy auction has no exposure problem, eliminates incentives for demand reduction, and prevents most collusive bidding strategies.Auctions, Combinatorial Auctions, Market Design, Clock Auctions

    Proving soundness of combinatorial Vickrey auctions and generating verified executable code

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    Using mechanised reasoning we prove that combinatorial Vickrey auctions are soundly specified in that they associate a unique outcome (allocation and transfers) to any valid input (bids). Having done so, we auto-generate verified executable code from the formally defined auction. This removes a source of error in implementing the auction design. We intend to use formal methods to verify new auction designs. Here, our contribution is to introduce and demonstrate the use of formal methods for auction verification in the familiar setting of a well-known auction

    Quadratic Core-Selecting Payment Rules for Combinatorial Auctions

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    We report on the use of a quadratic programming technique in recent and upcoming spectrum auctions in Europe. Specifically, we compute a unique point in the core that minimizes the sum of squared deviations from a reference point, for example, from the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves payments. Analyzing the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions, we demonstrate that the resulting payments can be decomposed into a series of economically meaningful and equitable penalties. Furthermore, we discuss the benefits of this combinatorial auction, explore the use of alternative reserve pricing approaches in this context, and indicate the results of several hundred computational runs using CATS data.Auctions, spectrum auctions, market design, package auction, clock auction, combinatorial auction

    Taking the Lab to the Field: Experimental Tests of Alternative Mechanisms to Procure Multiple Contracts

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    The first part of the paper reports the results from a sequence of laboratory experiments comparing the bidding behavior for multiple contracts in three different sealed bid auction mechanisms; first-price simultaneous, first-price sequential and first-price combinatorial bidding. The design of the experiment is based on experiences from a public procurement auction of road markings in Sweden. Bidders are asymmetric in their cost functions; some exhibit decreasing average costs of winning more than one contract, whereas other bidders have increasing average cost functions. The combinatorial bidding mechanism is demonstrated to be most efficient. The second part of the paper describes how the lab experiment was followed up by a field test of a combinatorial procurement auction of road markings.Multiple units, non-constant costs, asymmetric redemption values, alternative procurement mechanisms
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