SBIR Phase I: Incorporating Bidder Budgets in Multi-Item Auctions

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发允许投标人指定预算限制的拍卖软件，并将评估该软件用于进行大规模多物品拍卖的可行性。 在过去的15年里，多物品拍卖设计一直处于经济学和计算机科学研究的前沿。然而，当投标人面临严重的预算限制时，没有任何现有机制能够实现有效的竞争。新的密封投标设计，使投标人能够指定一个预算，鼓励投标人提出更多和更高的出价，更好地反映价值。因此，卖方将获得更高的价格，货物转让将更具经济效益。 在多物品拍卖中，投标人往往不能冒险，因为他们可能被要求支付超过其核定预算的费用。这方面的例子很普遍，从在线广告投放到采矿权和无线电频谱许可证的拍卖，而且已经部署了计算互联网广告预算的基本技术。目前迫切需要相关的基于电子商务的技术实物世界拍卖，在这种拍卖中，由于缺乏这种技术，投标的数量和水平都在减少。例如，在美国DOI出售石油和天然气权利的过程中，平均每个区块的投标次数只有1.3次，由于需要限制预算风险，失败的投标人无法竞争更多的区块。 在对以前成功进行的多物品拍卖进行经济分析的基础上，该提案将采取下一步行动，创建多物品拍卖软件，使投标人能够在有限的预算下有效工作。这些拍卖将促进更有效的结果和卖家的更高收入。这项研究将初步评估软件用于石油和天然气租赁的可行性，这将是将高效拍卖引入公共和私营部门其他重要市场的重要里程碑。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop auction software that allows bidders to specify budget constraints, and will assess the feasibility of this software for conducting large-scale multi-item auctions. Multi-item auction design has been at the frontier of research in economics and computer science over the past fifteen years. Yet no existing mechanism enables effective competition when bidders face serious budget constraints. New, sealed-bid designs that enable bidders to specify a budget encourage bidders to place more and higher bids, better reflecting values. Sellers will therefore receive higher prices and assignments of goods will be more economically efficient. In multi-item auctions, bidders often cannot risk outcomes where they may be required to pay more than their authorized budgets. Examples are widespread, ranging from online ad placement to auctions of mineral rights and radio spectrum licenses, and rudimentary technologies to account for Internet ad budgets have already been deployed. There is an immediate need for related budget-based technology physical world auctions where the absence of such technology is reducing the number and level of bids. For example, in sales of oil and gas rights by the US DOI, the average number of bids has been only 1.3 per tract, with losing bidders unable to compete for more tracts due to their need to limit budget exposure. Building on economic analyses of multi-item auctions successfully produced under previous efforts, this proposal will take the next step, creating multi-item auction software that allows bidders to work effectively with limited budgets. These auctions will promote more efficient outcomes and higher revenues for sellers. This research will initially assess the feasibility of software for use in oil and gas leasing, which will be a crucial milestone in bringing efficient auctions to other important markets in both the public and private sectors.