Informational limitations of ascending combinatorial auctions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blumrosen, Liad; Nisan, Noam
• 署名单位: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2009.10.012
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 1203-1223
• 关键词: Auctions; combinatorial auctions; Package auctions; ascending auctions; Non-linear prices; Personalized prices

摘要

We study the inherent limitations of natural widely-used classes of ascending combinatorial auctions. Specifically, we show that ascending combinatorial auctions that do not use both non-linear prices and personalized prices cannot achieve social efficiency with general bidder valuations. We also show that the loss of efficiency can be severe and that only a diminishing fraction of the social welfare may be captured. This justifies the added complexity in the auctions suggested by, e.g., Parkes and Ungar (2000) [29] and Ausubel and Milgrom (2002) [2]. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.