IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v90y2015icp227-246.html

Auctions with online supply

Author

Listed:
  • Babaioff, Moshe
  • Blumrosen, Liad
  • Roth, Aaron

Abstract

Online advertising auctions present settings in which there is uncertainty about the number of items for sale. We study mechanisms for selling identical items when the total supply is unknown but is drawn from a known distribution. Items arrive dynamically, and the seller must make immediate allocation and payment decisions with the goal of maximizing social welfare. We devise a simple incentive-compatible mechanism that guarantees some constant fraction of the first-best solution. A surprising feature of our mechanism is that it artificially limits supply, and we show that limiting the supply is essential for obtaining high social welfare. Although common when maximizing revenue, commitment to limit the supply is less intuitive when maximizing social welfare. The performance guarantee of our mechanism is in expectation over the supply distribution; We show that obtaining similar performance guarantee for every realization of supply is impossible.

Suggested Citation

  • Babaioff, Moshe & Blumrosen, Liad & Roth, Aaron, 2015. "Auctions with online supply," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 227-246.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:90:y:2015:i:c:p:227-246
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089982561500007X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2015.01.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dirk Bergemann & Maher Said, 2010. "Dynamic Auctions: A Survey," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1757, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    3. Jeitschko, Thomas D., 1999. "Equilibrium price paths in sequential auctions with stochastic supply," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 67-72, July.
    4. Myerson, Roger B, 1979. "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 61-73, January.
    5. McAfee R. Preston & Vincent Daniel, 1993. "The Declining Price Anomaly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 191-212, June.
    6. Jason D. Hartline, 2012. "Approximation in Mechanism Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 330-336, May.
    7. Alex Gershkov & Benny Moldovanu, 2009. "Learning about the Future and Dynamic Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1576-1587, September.
    8. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso V‰lim‰ki, 2010. "The Dynamic Pivot Mechanism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 771-789, March.
    9. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    10. Gershkov, Alex & Moldovanu, Benny, 2012. "Optimal search, learning and implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 881-909.
    11. Lehmann, Benny & Lehmann, Daniel & Nisan, Noam, 2006. "Combinatorial auctions with decreasing marginal utilities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 270-296, May.
    12. Susan Athey & Ilya Segal, 2013. "An Efficient Dynamic Mechanism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2463-2485, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ninoslav Malekovic & Lazaros Goutas & Juliana Sutanto & Dennis Galletta, 2020. "Regret under different auction designs: the case of English and Dutch auctions," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(1), pages 151-161, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mierendorff, Konrad, 2016. "Optimal dynamic mechanism design with deadlines," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 190-222.
    2. Bergemann, Dirk & Pavan, Alessandro, 2015. "Introduction to Symposium on Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 679-701.
    3. Lavi, Ron & Nisan, Noam, 2015. "Online ascending auctions for gradually expiring items," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 45-76.
    4. Roberto Burguet, 2000. "Auction theory: a guided tour," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(1), pages 3-50, January.
    5. Said, Maher, 2012. "Auctions with dynamic populations: Efficiency and revenue maximization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2419-2438.
    6. Liu, Heng, 2018. "Efficient dynamic mechanisms in environments with interdependent valuations: the role of contingent transfers," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    7. Caillaud, Bernard & Mezzetti, Claudio, 2004. "Equilibrium reserve prices in sequential ascending auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 78-95, July.
    8. Kruse, Thomas & Strack, Philipp, 2015. "Optimal stopping with private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 702-727.
    9. Alex Gershkov & Benny Moldovanu & Philipp Strack, 2018. "Revenue-Maximizing Mechanisms with Strategic Customers and Unknown, Markovian Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2031-2046, May.
    10. Arve, Malin & Zwart, Gijsbert, 2023. "Optimal procurement and investment in new technologies under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    11. Philippe Jehiel & Laurent Lamy, 2020. "On the Benefits of Set-Asides," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 1655-1696.
    12. Michel Mougeot & Pierre Malgrange, 2002. "Présentation générale," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 156(5), pages 1-7.
    13. Yeon-Koo Che, 2025. "Dynamic Market Design," Papers 2601.00155, arXiv.org.
    14. Chakraborty, Indranil, 2019. "Simultaneous vs. sequential auctions with risk averse bidders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 209-222.
    15. Li, Zhen & Kuo, Ching-Chung, 2011. "Revenue-maximizing Dutch auctions with discrete bid levels," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 215(3), pages 721-729, December.
    16. Robert Zeithammer, 2009. "Commitment in sequential auctioning: advance listings and threshold prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(1), pages 187-216, January.
    17. Marco Battaglini & Rohit Lamba, 2012. "Optimal Dynamic Contracting," Working Papers 1431, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    18. Pitchik, Carolyn, 2009. "Budget-constrained sequential auctions with incomplete information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 928-949, July.
    19. Cramton, Peter C, 1995. "Money Out of Thin Air: The Nationwide Narrowband PCS Auction," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 267-343, Summer.
    20. Patrick Hummel, 2018. "Reserve prices in repeated auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(1), pages 273-299, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:90:y:2015:i:c:p:227-246. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.