Generalized Vickrey Auction

Years and Authors of Summarized Original Work

• 1995; Varian

Problem Definition

Auctions are used for allocating goods, tasks, resources, etc. Participants in an auction include an auctioneer (usually a seller) and bidders (usually buyers). An auction has well-defined rules that enforce an agreement between the auctioneer and the winning bidder. Auctions are often used when a seller has difficulty in estimating the value of an auctioned good for buyers.

The Generalized Vickrey Auction protocol (GVA) [5] is an auction protocol that can be used for combinatorial auctions [3] in which multiple items/goods are sold simultaneously. Although conventional auctions sell a single item at a time, combinatorial auctions sell multiple items/goods. These goods may have interdependent values, e.g., these goods are complementary/substitutable and bidders can bid on any combination of goods. In a combinatorial auction, a bidder can express complementary/substitutable preferences over multiple bids. By...