A Double-Sided Multiunit Combinatorial Auction for Substitutes: Theory and Algorithms

Henry Schellhorn ()
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Henry Schellhorn: HEC, University of Lausanne and FAME

FAME Research Paper Series from International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering

Abstract: Combinatorial exchanges have existed for a long time in securities markets. In these auctions buyers and sellers can place orders on combinations, or bundles of different securities. These orders are conjunctive: they are matched only if the full bundle is available. On business-to-business (B2B) exchanges, buyers have the choice to receive the same product with different attributes; for instance the same product can be produced by different sellers. A buyer indicates his preference by submitting a disjunctive order, where he specifies how much of the product he wants, and how much he values each attribute. Only the goods with the best attributes and prices will be matched. This article considers a doubled-sided multi-unit combinatorial auction for substitutes, that is, a uniform price auction where buyers and sellers place both types of orders, conjunctive and disjunctive. We prove the existence of a linear price which is both competitive and surplus-maximizing when goods are perfectly divisible, and nearly so otherwise. We describe an algorithm to clear the market, which is particularly efficient when the number of traders is large.

Keywords: Combinatorial auction; economic equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C62 C63 D44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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