Auctions as Information Aggregation Mechanisms.


This tutorial will introduce auction mechanisms that are becoming 
a standard decision-making tool in presence of large amounts of 
information that is held diversely by self-interested parties. 
Auctions are used to allocate and price goods by efficiently 
eliciting and aggregating (often minimal amounts of) information 
needed to make an optimal decision. Basic concepts from economic 
theory of auctions will be introduced, but the focus will be on 
issues and mechanisms that are relevant in practical decision-making, 
i.e., on auctions that are conducted electronically (e.g., procurement 
auctions, ad auctions, etc.). Since auctions research today is way 
beyond pure economics, the tutorial will review some of the most 
exciting topics that are within areas of optimization and algorithmics. 
Finally, the tutorial will briefly introduce some auction and information 
aggregation extensions such as prediction markets recommender systems.