Learning valuation distributions from partial observations

Avrim Blum, Yishay Mansour, Jamie Morgenstern

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Auction theory traditionally assumes that bidders' valuation distributions are known to the auctioneer, such as in the celebrated, revenue-optimal Myerson auction (Myerson 1981). However, this theory does not describe how the auctioneer comes to possess this information. Recently work (Cole and Roughgarden 2014) showed that an approximation based on a finite sample of independent draws from each bidder's distribution is sufficient to produce a near-optimal auction. In this work, we consider the problem of learning bidders' valuation distributions from much weaker forms of observations. Specifically, we consider a setting where there is a repeated, sealed-bid auction with n bidders, but all we observe for each round is who won, but not how much they bid or paid. We can also participate (i.e., submit a bid) ourselves, and observe when we win. From this information, our goal is to (approximately) recover the inherently recoverable part of the underlying bid distributions. We also consider extensions where different subsets of bidders participate in each round, and where bidders' valuations have a common-value component added to their independent private values.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2015 and the 27th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, IAAI 2015
PublisherAI Access Foundation
Pages798-804
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781577357001
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2015
Event29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2015 and the 27th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, IAAI 2015 - Austin, United States
Duration: 25 Jan 201530 Jan 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Volume2

Conference

Conference29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2015 and the 27th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, IAAI 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAustin
Period25/01/1530/01/15

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Artificial Intelligence

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