Auctions with unique equilibria

Shuchi Chawla, Jason D Hartline

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

41 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study Bayes-Nash equilibria in a large class of anonymous order-based auctions. These include the generalized first-price auction for allocating positions to bidders, e.g., for sponsored search. We show that when bidders' values are independent and identically distributed there is a unique Bayes Nash equilibrium; This equilibrium is symmetric and efficient. Importantly, our proof is simple and structurally revealing. This uniqueness result for the generalized first-price auction is in stark contrast to the generalized second-price auction where there may be no efficient equilibrium. This result suggests, e.g., that first-price payment semantics may have advantages over second-price payment semantics. Our results extend also to certain models of risk aversion.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationEC 2013 - Proceedings of the 14th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages181-195
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9781450319621
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event14th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, EC 2013 - Philadelphia, PA, United States
Duration: Jun 16 2013Jun 20 2013

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce

Other

Other14th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, EC 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPhiladelphia, PA
Period6/16/136/20/13

Keywords

  • All-pay auction
  • Bayes-nash equilibrium
  • First-price auction
  • Gfp
  • Gsp
  • Price of anarchy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications

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