A New Derandomization of Auctions

Abstract

Abstract. Let A be a randomized, unlimited supply, unit demand, single-item auction, which given a bid-vector b ∈ [h] n , has expected profit E[P (b)]. Aggarwal et al. showed that given A, there exists a deterministic auction which given a bid-vector b, guarantees a profit ofIn this paper we show that given A, there exists a deterministic auction which given a bid-vector b of length n, guarantees a profit ofAs is the case with the construction of Aggarwal et al., our construction is not polynomial time computable.

Derandomization of auctions

“…Recent followup work to this paper followed a different approach to the one discussed above to show that there are in fact deterministic, asymmetric auctions that are asymptotically optimal (Ben-Zwi et al, 2009). This work gives an existence proof, via the Lovász local lemma, that shows that for any randomized auction that achieves a good expected revenue on some profile of valuations, there is a deterministic, asymmetric auction that achieves this revenue deterministically less an additive loss of O (h n log hn ) (for integer valued valuation profiles with maximum value h).…”

Hats, auctions and derandomization

“…Goldberg et al [18] studied these auctions and suggested, in order to obtain a prior free, worst case analysis framework, to use the optimal fixed price auction as a benchmark to compare with. They adopted the online algorithms terminology [32] and named the revenue of the fixed price auction the offline revenue and the revenue of a multiprice truthful auction, i.e., an auction for which every bidder has an incentive to bid its Correspondence to: O. Ben-Zwi Part of the results presented in this work appeard on the first author's thesis [5] and are based on works which were published in [6][7][8].…”

“…Part of the results presented in this work appeard on the first author's thesis and are based on works which were published in .…”

Optimal Bi-Valued Auctions

“…Aggarwal et al [1,2] later showed how to construct from any randomized auction a deterministic, asymmetric auction with a factor 4 loss in the gained revenue. This result was then improved by the authors together with Wolfovitz [3], but no tight derandomization was ever presented.…”