Auction Theory

What Hacker News says

1. jhgbDec 2021
   To me, the real guide to auctions for computer scientists is Vijay Krishna's Auction Theory (2009, Academic Press). At least that's what was recommended to me once.
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2. huitzitziltzinMar 2021
   This depends on the exact nature of the object being auctioned. The details matter a lot. Some good economists have worked on this problem both in theory and empirically for a long time.

   Under independent private valuation (where the value of the object is completely idiosyncratic to you), your thought is (AFAIK) correct. Here think of art: ignoring resale value, how much someone else would pay for an object depends on how much he likes it, but doesn't have anything to do with how you should bid - your bid is a function of how much you like it. (To a first approximation - again the details of the auction format really matter.)

   In a common value situation (where the value of the underlying object to any player is the same, but players _signals_ (an input to their beliefs) about that value contain an idiosyncratic component), you might learn something about the quality of your own signal by knowing something about the bids of other players in the auction. For example: are you about to overpay b/c you believe Hinton's time is worth a lot more than Google and Baidu believe it to be worth??

   The phrase "the winner's curse" was invented for this problem in the context of bidding for offshore oil leases. The value to all players (the number of barrels of oil in the field) is the same, but they have different beliefs about what that number is. The winner's curse is that the highest bidder was generally the most optimistic about the value of the field. It's a "curse" b/c the optimism was frequently not justified.

   What was actually being auctioned here is a little unclear - something like "the time and expertise of Hinton + two grad students", but it's plausible that Google, Microsoft and Baidu could have made equally good use of it. It reads more like a common value setting, that is. So knowing the bids can matter.

   If you want to know more about auction theory (this comment may already be more than you want to know!), I can recommend Krishna's "Auction Theory" or Milgrom's "Putting Auction Theory to Work."

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3. ronald_raygunJul 2017
   I'd highly recommend this book. The math is decently sophisticated, but it has a lot of cool insights.

   https://www.amazon.com/Auction-Theory-Second-Vijay-Krishna/d...

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4. thisAintNoGameAug 2012
   Hmmm...

   I have no proof for what I'm about to say but here it is anyway.

   The only information that bidders will practically care about is the current top bid. So the information that you are charging people for is the same thing that most auctions already display (that is, the current top bid). As the seller, I want people to see this top bid because it will raise my revenue. Charging people to see the top bid will result in less people seeing the top bid and lower revenue overall. It makes money for the site but less money for the seller. Then I might want to go to another site and make more money for my item.

   You might want to look into using a 2nd price auction (like eBay) does. There's a nice book called Auction Theory by Vijay Krishna that might be of interest to you guys.

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5. samsonraduOct 2020
   Here’s another book of his on the topic - Putting Auction Theory to Work

   http://www.econ.ucla.edu/riley/271/Milgrom-Putting%20Auction...

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6. TriinTJun 2009
   IMHO, this list contains only BS books. Tim Ferriss? Seth Godin? Malcolm Gladwell? Please. This is a list for those who need self-help and "motivation" books. Only exception is Livingston's F@W. The rest is pretty much junk.

   Please allow me to write down my personal list for those who love to learn:

   - The Art of Computer Programming

   - Algorithms (by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani)

   - Algorithm Design (by Kleinberg and Tardos)

   - Feynman Lectures on Physics

   - Landau & Lifschitz's series

   - Vladimir Arnold's books on ODEs and Classical Mechanics

   - Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (by Berlekamp et al.)

   - Elements of Information Theory (by Cover & Thomas)

   - Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms (by MacKay)

   - Network Optimization (by Bertsekas)

   - Convex Optimization (by Boyd & Vandenberghe)

   - Nonlinear Control Systems (by Isidori)

   - Visual Complex Analysis (by Needham)

   - Lasers (by Siegman)

   - Game Theory (by Fudenberg & Tirole)

   - Trading and Exchanges (by Harris)

   Plus a bunch of books on Classical Mechanics, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Differential Geometry, Real Analysis, Algebra, Theoretical CS, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, Evolution, Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Auction Theory, Economics, Finance, etc. That would be a reading list worth considering! It would also take a lifetime to read all the books...

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