IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sip/dpaper/08-013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Simplified Mechanisms with an Application to Sponsored-Search Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Milgrom

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

A mechanism can be simplified by restricting its message space. If the restricted message space satisfies a certain “outcome closure property,” then the simplification is “tight”: for every S=0 any Nash equilibrium of the simplified mechanism is also an Nash equilibrium of the unrestricted mechanism. Prominent auction and matching mechanisms are tight simplifications of mechanisms studied in economic theory and often incorporate price-adjustment features that facilitate simplification. The generalized second price auction used for sponsored-search advertising is a tight simplification of a series of second-price auctions that eliminates the lowest revenue equilibrium outcomes and leaves intact only higher revenue equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Milgrom, 2008. "Simplified Mechanisms with an Application to Sponsored-Search Auctions," Discussion Papers 08-013, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:08-013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/08-013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roth,Alvin E. & Sotomayor,Marilda A. Oliveira, 1992. "Two-Sided Matching," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521437882.
    2. Paul Milgrom, 2009. "Assignment Messages and Exchanges," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 95-113, August.
    3. Simon, Leo K & Zame, William R, 1990. "Discontinuous Games and Endogenous Sharing Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 861-872, July.
    4. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2007. "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 242-259, March.
    5. Peter Cramton & Yoav Shoham & Richard Steinberg, 2004. "Combinatorial Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 04mit, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2004.
    6. Tjalling C. Koopmans & Martin J. Beckmann, 1955. "Assignment Problems and the Location of Economic Activities," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 4, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    9. Roberts, Donald John & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1976. "The Incentives for Price-Taking Behavior in Large Exchange Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(1), pages 115-127, January.
    10. John William Hatfield & Paul R. Milgrom, 2005. "Matching with Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 913-935, September.
    11. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    12. Edward Clarke, 1971. "Multipart pricing of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 17-33, September.
    13. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-631, July.
    14. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Paul Milgrom, 2004. "Ascending Proxy Auctions," Discussion Papers 03-035, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Ausubel Lawrence M & Milgrom Paul R, 2002. "Ascending Auctions with Package Bidding," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-44, August.
    3. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2020. "Improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2020-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    4. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2006. "Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001022, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Paul Milgrom, 2006. "Incentives in Core-Selecting Auctions," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000503, UCLA Department of Economics.
    6. Paul Milgrom, 2006. "Package Auctions and Package Exchanges: the 2004 Fisher-Schultz Lecture," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000131, UCLA Department of Economics.
    7. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Paul Milgrom, 2012. "System and Method for a Hybrid Clock and Proxy Auction," Papers of Peter Cramton 12acmhc, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    8. Zhou, Yu & Serizawa, Shigehiro, 2023. "Multi-object auction design beyond quasi-linearity: Leading examples," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 210-228.
    9. Yu Zhou & Shigehiro Serizawa, 2021. "Multi-object Auction Design Beyond Quasi-linearity: Leading Examples," ISER Discussion Paper 1116r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised Nov 2022.
    10. Jagadeesan, Ravi & Kominers, Scott Duke & Rheingans-Yoo, Ross, 2018. "Strategy-proofness of worker-optimal matching with continuously transferable utility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 287-294.
    11. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    12. Mishra, Debasis & Parkes, David C., 2007. "Ascending price Vickrey auctions for general valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 335-366, January.
    13. Tayfun Sönmez & Tobias B. Switzer, 2013. "Matching With (Branch‐of‐Choice) Contracts at the United States Military Academy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 451-488, March.
    14. Mishra, Debasis & Talman, Dolf, 2010. "Characterization of the Walrasian equilibria of the assignment model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 6-20, January.
    15. John William Hatfield & Paul R. Milgrom, 2005. "Matching with Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 913-935, September.
    16. Núñez, Marina & Rafels, Carlos & Robles, Francisco, 2020. "A mechanism for package allocation problems with gross substitutes," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 6-14.
    17. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2007. "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 242-259, March.
    18. Raghavan, Madhav, 2020. "Influence in private-goods allocation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 14-28.
    19. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Wynne P. Jones, 2012. "System and Method for an Auction of Multiple Types of Items," Papers of Peter Cramton 11acjam, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    20. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2012. "Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley: Stable allocations and the practice of market design," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2012-1, Nobel Prize Committee.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sponsored search; generalized second-price auctions; mechanism design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

    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:sip:dpaper:08-013. 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: Anne Shor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cestaus.html .

    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.