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A Prior-Independent Revenue-Maximizing Auction for Multiple Additive Bidders

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Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 10123))

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Abstract

Recent work by Babaioff et al. [1], Yao [30], and Cai et al. [7] shows how to construct an approximately optimal auction for additive bidders, given access to the priors from which the bidders’ values are drawn. In this paper, building on the single sample approach of Dhangwatnotai et al. [15], we show how the auctioneer can obtain approximately optimal expected revenue in this setting without knowing the priors, as long as the item distributions are regular.

This research was done in part while the authors were visiting the Simons Institute for Theoretical Computer Science. The authors are funded by the National Science Foundation under CCF grant 1420381.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Thus, from the seller’s perspective this value is a random variable \(V_{ij}\).

  2. 2.

    i.e., revenue-maximizing, in expectation.

  3. 3.

    This is a reinterpretation of the Bulow-Klemperer Theorem [2].

  4. 4.

    This guarantees that each item is taken by at most one bidder.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington, 98195, USA

    Kira Goldner & Anna R. Karlin

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  1. Kira Goldner
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  2. Anna R. Karlin
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Correspondence to Kira Goldner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Yang Cai

  2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Adrian Vetta

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Goldner, K., Karlin, A.R. (2016). A Prior-Independent Revenue-Maximizing Auction for Multiple Additive Bidders. In: Cai, Y., Vetta, A. (eds) Web and Internet Economics. WINE 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10123. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-54110-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-54110-4_12

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