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Auctions between Regret-Minimizing Agents

Published: 25 April 2022 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    We analyze a scenario in which software agents implemented as regret-minimizing algorithms engage in a repeated auction on behalf of their users. We study first-price and second-price auctions, as well as their generalized versions (e.g., as those used for ad auctions). Using both theoretical analysis and simulations, we show that, surprisingly, in second-price auctions the players have incentives to misreport their true valuations to their own learning agents, while in first-price auctions it is a dominant strategy for all players to truthfully report their valuations to their agents.

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    Cited By

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    • (2024)Strategic Budget Selection in a Competitive Autobidding WorldProceedings of the 56th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing10.1145/3618260.3649688(213-224)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2024
    • (2024)Budget-Constrained Auctions with Unassured Priors: Strategic Equivalence and Structural PropertiesProceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 202410.1145/3589334.3645344(14-24)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
    • (2023)Liquid Welfare Guarantees for No-Regret Learning in Sequential Budgeted AuctionsProceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation10.1145/3580507.3597772(678-698)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2023
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          cover image ACM Conferences
          WWW '22: Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2022
          April 2022
          3764 pages
          ISBN:9781450390965
          DOI:10.1145/3485447
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          Published: 25 April 2022

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          Author Tags

          1. Auctions
          2. Regret Minimization
          3. Repeated Games.

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          • The European Research Council (ERC)

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          WWW '22: The ACM Web Conference 2022
          April 25 - 29, 2022
          Virtual Event, Lyon, France

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          Overall Acceptance Rate 1,899 of 8,196 submissions, 23%

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          View all
          • (2024)Strategic Budget Selection in a Competitive Autobidding WorldProceedings of the 56th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing10.1145/3618260.3649688(213-224)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2024
          • (2024)Budget-Constrained Auctions with Unassured Priors: Strategic Equivalence and Structural PropertiesProceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 202410.1145/3589334.3645344(14-24)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
          • (2023)Liquid Welfare Guarantees for No-Regret Learning in Sequential Budgeted AuctionsProceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation10.1145/3580507.3597772(678-698)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2023
          • (2022)How and why to manipulate your own agentProceedings of the 36th International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems10.5555/3600270.3602306(28080-28094)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2022
          • (undefined)Budget-Constrained Auctions with Unassured PriorsSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4071291

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