Internet auction sites have evolved into markets where commodity goods such as electronics or DVDs are traded. Often several auctions for very similar (if not identical) items run simultaneously, and unit-demand bidders must adopt global multi-auction bidding strategies. Despite the increasing practical importance of such markets, there is relatively little theory on how unit-demand bidders sho...

This paper presents efficient secure auction protocols for first price auction and second price auction. Previous auction protocols are based on a generally secure multi-party protocol called mix-and-match protocol. However, the time complexity of the mix-and-match protocol is large, although it can securely calculate any logical circuits. The proposed protocols reduce the number of times the m...

We compare the performance of three alternative multi-object auction institutions: simultaneous ascending auctions with the hard closing rule, simultaneous ascending auctions with the soft closing rule, and simultaneous first price sealed bid auctions. Among the three formats, the simultaneous ascending auction with the soft closing rule is the most efficient and produces outcomes closest to th...

In this paper, we study pricing models for multi-slot advertisements, where advertisers can bid to place links to their sales webpages at one or multiple slots on a webpage, called the multi-slot AD auction problem. We develop and analyze several important mechanisms, including the VCG mechanism for multi-slot ads auction, the optimal social welfare solution, as well as two weighted GSP-like pr...

This paper provides a model that allows for interpreting bids in a Vickrey auction when the good has public good attributes. It also examines information obtained from a Vickrey auction, which collected consumer’s willingness-to-pay for pork products that had embedded environmental attributes, and applies the new interpretation to the bids. Copyright 2003 by Sean P. Hurley and James B. Kliebens...

In multi-object auction models with unit demand agents, two standard assumptions are the quasi-linearity of utility functions and coincidence between price increment valuation unit. Under these assumptions, exact ascending Demange et al. (1986), sealed-bid Vickrey auction, as well approximate (1986) identify minimum equilibrium (MPE) while elegantly exhibiting efficiency incentive-compatibility...

An attribute grammar is simple multi-visit if each attribute of a nonterminal has a fixed visit-number associated with it such that, during attribute evaluation, the attributes of a node which have visit-number j are computed at the jth visit to the node. An attribute grammar is Iordered if for each nonterminal a linear order of its attributes exists such that the attributes of a node can alway...

The design of revenue-maximizing combinatorial auctions, i.e. multi-item auctions over bundles of goods, is one of the most fundamental problems in computational economics, unsolved even for two bidders and two items for sale. In the traditional economic models, it is assumed that the bidders’ valuations are drawn from an underlying distribution and that the auction designer has perfect knowled...

We consider the following problem in which a given number of items has to be chosen from a predefined set. Each item is described by a vector of attributes and for each attribute there is a desired distribution that the selected set should have. We look for a set that fits as much as possible the desired distributions on all attributes. Examples of applications include choosing members of a rep...