Mechanisms for Multi-Unit Auctions

We present an incentive-compatible polynomial-time approximation scheme for multiunit auctions with general k-minded player valuations. The mechanism fully optimizes over an appropriately chosen sub-range of possible allocations and then uses VCG payments over this sub-range. We show that obtaining a fully polynomial-time incentive-compatible approximation scheme, at least using VCG payments, is NP-hard. For the case of valuations given by black boxes, we give a polynomial-time incentive-compatible 2-approximation mechanism and show that no better is possible, at least using VCG payments.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: JAIR
• Authors: Shahar Dobzinski, Noam Nisan
• Keywords: JAIR 2010, Polynomial-time Approximation Scheme, Polynomial-time Incentive-compatible Approximation, VCG Payments