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  An Efficient Approximate Allocation Algorithm for Combinatorial Auctions (2001) [29 citations — 9 self]

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by Edo Zurel, Noam Nisan
http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~zurel/alppaper/paper.ps.gz
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Abstract:

We propose a heuristic for allocation in combinatorial auctions. We first run an approximation algorithm on the linear programming relaxation of the combinatorial auction. We then run a sequence of greedy algorithms, starting with the order on the bids determined by the approximate linear program and continuing in a hill-climbing fashion using local improvements in the order of bids. We have implemented the algorithm and have tested it on the complete corpus of instances provided by Vohra and de Vries as well as on instances drawn from the distributions of Leyton-Brown, Pearson, and Shoham. Our algorithm typically runs two to three orders of magnitude faster than the reported running times of Vohra and de Vries, while achieving an average approximation error of less than 1%. This algorithm can provide, in less than a minute of CPU time, excellent solutions for problems with over 1000 items and 10,000 bids. We thus believe that combinatorial auctions for most purposes face no practical computational hurdles.

Citations

364 An algorithm for optimal winner determination in combinatorial auctions – Sandholm - 1999
230 Taming the computational complexity of combinatorial auctions: Optimal and approximate approaches – Fujishima, Leyton-Brown, et al.
199 Bidding and allocation in combinatorial auctions – Nisan - 2000
195 Fast approximation algorithms for fractional packing and covering problems – Plotkin, Shmoys, et al. - 1995
115 Limitations of the vickrey auction in computational multiagent systems – Sandholm - 1996
64 Integer Programming for Combinatorial Auction Winner Determination – Andersson, Tenhunen, et al. - 2000
52 Some tractable combinatorial auctions – Tennenholtz - 2000
40 Global Optimization Using Local Information with Applications to Flow Control – Bartal, Byers, et al. - 1997
23 Truth revelation in rapid, approximately ecient combinatorial auctions – Lehmann, O'Callaghan, et al. - 1999
11 The communication complexity of combinatorial auctions. Working paper, the Hebrew – Nisan - 2001
2 Towards a Universal Test Suite for Combinatorial Auction Algorithms – Luby, Nisan