Truthful approximation mechanisms for restricted combinatorial auctions Export

@article{citeulike:5867044, abstract = {When attempting to design a truthful mechanism for a computationally hard problem such as combinatorial auctions, one is faced with the problem that most efficiently computable heuristics can not be embedded in any truthful mechanism (e.g. VCG-like payment rules will not ensure truthfulness). We develop a set of techniques that allow constructing efficiently computable truthful mechanisms for combinatorial auctions in the special case where each bidder desires a specific known subset of items and only the valuation is unknown by the mechanism (the single parameter case). For this case we extend the work of Lehmann, O'Callaghan, and Shoham, who presented greedy heuristics. We show how to use If-Then-Else constructs, perform a partial search, and use the LP relaxation. We apply these techniques for several canonical types of combinatorial auctions, obtaining truthful mechanisms with provable approximation ratios.}, author = {Mualem, A. and Nisan, N.}, citeulike-article-id = {5867044}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2007.12.009}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S089982560800050X}, doi = {10.1016/j.geb.2007.12.009}, issn = {08998256}, journal = {Games and Economic Behavior}, keywords = {auctions, combinational, incentive}, month = {November}, number = {2}, pages = {612--631}, posted-at = {2009-10-01 13:18:55}, priority = {2}, title = {Truthful approximation mechanisms for restricted combinatorial auctions}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2007.12.009}, volume = {64}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5867044 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5867044 N2 - When attempting to design a truthful mechanism for a computationally hard problem such as combinatorial auctions, one is faced with the problem that most efficiently computable heuristics can not be embedded in any truthful mechanism (e.g. VCG-like payment rules will not ensure truthfulness). We develop a set of techniques that allow constructing efficiently computable truthful mechanisms for combinatorial auctions in the special case where each bidder desires a specific known subset of items and only the valuation is unknown by the mechanism (the single parameter case). For this case we extend the work of Lehmann, O'Callaghan, and Shoham, who presented greedy heuristics. We show how to use If-Then-Else constructs, perform a partial search, and use the LP relaxation. We apply these techniques for several canonical types of combinatorial auctions, obtaining truthful mechanisms with provable approximation ratios. IS - 2 JF - Games and Economic Behavior SN - 08998256 EP - 631 TI - Truthful approximation mechanisms for restricted combinatorial auctions VL - 64 SP - 612 KW - auctions KW - combinational KW - incentive AU - Mualem, A AU - Nisan, N PY - 2008/11// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2007.12.009 ER -