Groves sealed bid auctions of heterogeneous objects with fair prices

Abstract.

We study the allocation of heterogeneous indivisible objects to agents whose valuations of the objects depend on what other objects they are obtained with. We apply the envyfree criterion to Groves sealed bid auctions, which are value maximizing and dominant strategy incentive compatible for this multi-object allocation problem. First we show that if valuations are unrestricted then there is no Groves auction which ensures that the allocation is always envyfree. We obtain a positive result, however, if the valuations of the objects are superadditive, and give a complete characterization of Groves prices that guarantee envyfreeness for superadditive valuations.