Multi-unit auctions with budget limits

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dobzinski, Shahar; Lavi, Ron; Nisan, Noam
• 署名单位: Technion Israel Institute of Technology; Cornell University; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Alphabet Inc.; Google Incorporated
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2011.08.003
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 486-503
• 关键词: Multi-unit auctions; budget constraints; Pareto optimality

摘要

We study multi-unit auctions for bidders that have a budget constraint, a situation very common in practice that has received relatively little attention in the auction theory literature. Our main result is an impossibility: there is no deterministic auction that (1) is individually rational and dominant-strategy incentive-compatible, (2) makes no positive transfers, and (3) always produces a Pareto optimal outcome. In contrast, we show that Ausubel's clinching auction satisfies all these properties when the budgets are public knowledge. Moreover, we prove that the clinching auction is the unique auction that satisfies all these properties when there are two players. This uniqueness result is the cornerstone of the impossibility result. Few additional related results are given, including some results on the revenue of the clinching auction and on the case where the items are divisible. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.