title: Combinatorial auction design.
abstract: Combinatorial auctions allow for more expressive bidding in which participants can submit package bids with logical constraints that limit allowable outcomes. This type of auction can be useful when participants' values are complementary or when participants have production and financial constraints. However, combinatorial auctions are currently rare in practice. The main problems confronted in implementing these auctions are that they have computational uncertainty (i.e., there is no guarantee that the winning bids for such an auction can be found in a "reasonable" amount of time when the number of bidders and items becomes larger) and that the auction is cognitively complex and can lead participants to pursue perverse bidding strategies. This article describes a type of combinatorial auction that, during laboratory testing, eliminated these problems and produced extremely efficient outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. dporter4@gmu.edu
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Porter
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rassenti
authors.forename: Anil
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roopnarine
authors.forename: Vernon
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Smith