Toward standardardized VCG systems.

Undominated VCG redistribution mechanisms

Many important problems in multiagent systems can be seen as resource allocation problems. For such problems, the well-known Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism is efficient, incentive compatible, individually rational, and does not incur a deficit. However, the VCG mechanism is not (strongly) budget balanced: generally, the agents’ payments will sum to more than 0. Very recently, several mec...

EPIC Mechanisms and VCG

VCG Redistribution with Gross Substitutes

For the problem of allocating resources among multiple strategic agents, the well-known Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism is efficient, strategy-proof, and it never incurs a deficit. However, in general, under the VCG mechanism, payments flow out of the system of agents, which reduces the agents’ utilities. VCG redistribution mechanisms aim to return as much of the VCG payments as possible ...

GROWRANGE: Anytime VCG-Based Mechanisms

We introduce anytime mechanisms for distributed optimization with self-interested agents. Anytime mechanisms retain good incentive properties even when interrupted before the optimal solution is computed, and provide better quality solutions when given additional time. Anytime mechanisms can solve easy instances of a hard problem quickly and optimally, while providing approximate solutions on v...

Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) Auctions

A VCG auction (named after their inventors Vickrey, Clarke, and Groves) is a generalization of the single-good, second price Vickrey auction to the case of a combinatorial auction (multiple goods, from which any participant can bid on each possible combination). We formalize in this entry VCG auctions, including tie-breaking and prove that the functions for the allocation and the price determin...