Profit Maximization in Deferred-Acceptance Auctions

Abstract

In this thesis we study the problem of revenue maximization for multi-unit deferred-acceptance auctions. Deferred-acceptance auctions have been studied extensively, but mostly for the objective of social welfare, and most studies have followed a worst case analysis approach. In this thesis our aim is to design deferred-acceptance auctions that, given some samples of the players' valuation distributions, achieve expected revenue close to optimal. We focus on two distinct environments, a single-parameter one, multi-unit auctions with bidders with additive valuation functions, and a multi-parameter one, multi-unit auctions with bidders with submodular valuation functions.