Essays in market design
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation studies two problems in market design: the random assignment with fractional endowments, and combinatorial auction with budget-constrained bidders. In the random assignment problem, a number of objects has to be assigned to a number of agents. Though the objects are indivisible, an assignment can be probabilistic: it can give an agent some probability of getting an object. I first formulate an exchange economy that resembles the random assignment problem and prove the existence of competitive equilibrium in this economy. I then propose a pseudo-market mechanism for the random assignment problem that is based on the competitive equilibrium. This mechanism is individually rational, Pareto Optimal and justified envy-free. The mechanism is, however, not incentive compatible. Budget constraints of the bidders are a very relevant feature in combinatorial auctions. I show that they pose serious challenges to many prominent existing auction formats. Given the limitations of existing mechanisms, it is useful to know what mechanisms can accommodate budget constraints. I restrict my search to mechanisms that are reasonable: they must be incentive compatible, individually rational, symmetric, non-wasteful and non-bossy. First focusing on the greedy domain, in which a bidder's marginal values, if non-zero, always exceeds his budget, I show that there exists an unique reasonable mechanism, called the Iterative Second Price Auction. For the general domain, however, no reasonable mechanism exists. I propose a mechanism that is a partial solution, called budget VCG. It is based on the principle that a winning bidder must be able to pay the externality that he imposes on other bidders. The budget VCG mechanism partially attains Pareto optimality and has some good incentive properties.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Lê, Phương Chi |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Economics. |
| Primary advisor | Kojima, Fuhito |
| Thesis advisor | Kojima, Fuhito |
| Thesis advisor | Segal, Ilya |
| Thesis advisor | Wolitzky, Alexander |
| Advisor | Segal, Ilya |
| Advisor | Wolitzky, Alexander |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Phuong Chi Le. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Economics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Phuong Chi Le
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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