Modularity and greed in double auctions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dutting, Paul; Talgam-Cohen, Inbal; Roughgarden, Tim
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.06.008
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 59-83
• 关键词: Mechanism design; Double auctions; Trade reduction mechanism; Deferred-acceptance auctions

摘要

Designing double auctions is a complex problem, especially when there are restrictions on the sets of buyers and sellers that may trade with one another. The goal of this paper is to develop a modular approach to the design of double auctions, by relating it to the exhaustively-studied problem of designing one-sided mechanisms with a single seller (or, alternatively, a single buyer). We consider several desirable properties of a double auction: feasibility, dominant-strategy incentive compatibility, the still stronger incentive constraints offered by a deferred-acceptance implementation, exact and approximate welfare maximization, and budget balance. For each of these properties, we identify sufficient conditions on two one-sided algorithms-one for ranking the buyers, one for ranking the sellers-and on a method for their composition into trading pairs, which guarantee the desired property of the double auction. Our framework also offers new insights into classic double auction designs, such as the VCG and McAfee auctions with unit-demand buyers and unit-supply sellers. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc.