Robust Combinatorial Auction Formats

In a combinatorial auction (CA) several heterogeneous items are traded simultaneously, they can be distributed between several winners, and the bidders can submit indivisible all-or-nothing “bundle” bids on groups of items. CAs are getting increasingly popular for conducting negotiations on complex high-stakes markets, for example spectrum auctions and industrial procurement. The goal of this work is to suggest a practical and robust combinatorial auction format which delivers good results for various types of bidder valuations and strategies, including cases when the bidders do not follow the theoretically optimal strategy.