<p>In this paper we design information elicitation mechanisms for Bayesian auctions. While in Bayesian mechanism design the distributions of the players’ private types are often assumed to be common knowledge, information elicitation considers the situation where the players know the distributions better than the decision maker. To weaken the information assumption in Bayesian auctions, we consider an information structure where the knowledge about the distributions is <i>arbitrarily scattered</i> among the players. In such an unstructured information setting, we design mechanisms for unit-demand auctions and additive auctions that <i>aggregate</i> the players’ knowledge, generating revenue that are constant approximations to the optimal Bayesian mechanisms with a common prior. Our mechanisms are 2-step dominant-strategy truthful and the approximation ratios improve gracefully with the amount of knowledge the players collectively have.</p>

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Information elicitation mechanisms for Bayesian auctions

  • Jing Chen,
  • Bo Li,
  • Yingkai Li

摘要

In this paper we design information elicitation mechanisms for Bayesian auctions. While in Bayesian mechanism design the distributions of the players’ private types are often assumed to be common knowledge, information elicitation considers the situation where the players know the distributions better than the decision maker. To weaken the information assumption in Bayesian auctions, we consider an information structure where the knowledge about the distributions is arbitrarily scattered among the players. In such an unstructured information setting, we design mechanisms for unit-demand auctions and additive auctions that aggregate the players’ knowledge, generating revenue that are constant approximations to the optimal Bayesian mechanisms with a common prior. Our mechanisms are 2-step dominant-strategy truthful and the approximation ratios improve gracefully with the amount of knowledge the players collectively have.