Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers

Tomer Ezra; Michal Feldman; Eric Neyman; Inbal Talgam-Cohen; Matt Weinberg

doi:10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025

Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers

Tomer Ezra, Michal Feldman, Eric Neyman, Inbal Talgam-Cohen, Matt Weinberg

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the communication complexity of welfare maximization in combinatorial auctions with m items and two players with subadditive valuations. We show that outperforming the trivial 1/2-Approximation requires exponential communication, settling an open problem of Dobzinski, Nisan and Schapira [STOC'05, MOR'10] and Feige [STOC'06, SICOMP '09]. To derive our results, we introduce a new class of subadditive functions that are 'far from' fractionally subadditive (XOS) functions, and establish randomized communication lower bounds for a new 'near-EQUALITY' problem, both of which may be of independent interest.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019
Publisher	IEEE Computer Society
Pages	249-272
Number of pages	24
ISBN (Electronic)	9781728149523
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025
State	Published - Nov 2019
Event	60th IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019 - Baltimore, United States Duration: 9 Nov 2019 → 12 Nov 2019

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS
Volume	2019-November
ISSN (Print)	0272-5428

Conference

Conference	60th IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019
Country/Territory	United States
City	Baltimore
Period	9/11/19 → 12/11/19

Keywords

combinatorial auctions
communication complexity
subadditive functions

Access to Document

10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025

Cite this

Ezra, T., Feldman, M., Neyman, E., Talgam-Cohen, I., & Weinberg, M. (2019). Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers. In Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019 (pp. 249-272). Article 8948593 (Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS; Vol. 2019-November). IEEE Computer Society. https://doi.org/10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025

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title = "Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers",

abstract = "We study the communication complexity of welfare maximization in combinatorial auctions with m items and two players with subadditive valuations. We show that outperforming the trivial 1/2-Approximation requires exponential communication, settling an open problem of Dobzinski, Nisan and Schapira [STOC'05, MOR'10] and Feige [STOC'06, SICOMP '09]. To derive our results, we introduce a new class of subadditive functions that are 'far from' fractionally subadditive (XOS) functions, and establish randomized communication lower bounds for a new 'near-EQUALITY' problem, both of which may be of independent interest.",

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Ezra, T, Feldman, M, Neyman, E, Talgam-Cohen, I & Weinberg, M 2019, Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers. in Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019., 8948593, Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS, vol. 2019-November, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 249-272, 60th IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019, Baltimore, United States, 9/11/19. https://doi.org/10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025

Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers. / Ezra, Tomer; Feldman, Michal; Neyman, Eric et al.
Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019. IEEE Computer Society, 2019. p. 249-272 8948593 (Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS; Vol. 2019-November).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Ezra T, Feldman M, Neyman E, Talgam-Cohen I, Weinberg M. Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers. In Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS 2019. IEEE Computer Society. 2019. p. 249-272. 8948593. (Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS). doi: 10.1109/FOCS.2019.00025

Settling the Communication Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions with Two Subadditive Buyers

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Keywords

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