Abstract: A combinatorial auction is an auction where multiple items are for sale simultaneously to a set of buyers. In a combinatorial auction a buyer is allowed to place bids on subsets of the items. These subsets are sometimes called bundles. The auctioneer decides to accept some of the bids and to allocate the items accordingly to the bidders. The main advantage of a combinatorial auction is that it allows a bidder to express his preferences to a greater extent. In a combinatorial auction in its most general form, bidders can bid whatever amount they please on any subset of items in which they are interested. The problem of deciding which bidders should get what items in order to maximize the total winning bid value is called the winner determination problem and is NP -hard (Rothkopf, Pekec & Harstad 1998). Numerous attempts to cope with this computational complexity can be found in literature. One of them is to impose limitations to what a bidder is allowed to bid on a bundle. The matrix bid auction was developed by Day (2004) and is a way to restrict the preferences of the bidders.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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