Prof. Martin Bichler
Lecture WS 18/19
Auction Theory and Market Design (IN2211)
Intended learning outcomes:
The field of market design studies how to construct rules for allocating resources or to structure successful marketplaces. It draws on the tools of game theory and mechanism design to identify why certain market rules or institutions succeed and why others fail. The field has become popular in the recent years with many applications in the sale of spectrum licenses, electricity markets, or the assignment of students to courses.
After participating in the course, the participants understand methods and game-theoretical models of auctions as well as the fundamental problems in the design of combinatorial auctions. They are able to assess the properties of different auction formats, and the results of theoretical and experimental analyses.
Prerequisites:
Students should be familiar with linear and integer optimization. The lecture on algorithmic game theory provides complementary concepts in game theory and related issues in complexity theory.
Syllabus:
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Lectures: Wednesdays, 13:30 - 17:00, TUM Department of Informatics, Garching-Forschungszentrum, Room 01.10.011
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Tutorial: Wednesdays, 10:45 - 12:15, TUM Department of Informatics, Garching-Forschungszentrum, Room 01.10.011
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On October 31st the tutorial takes place from 12:00-13:30 due to the Student Body General Meeting.
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Final exam: Friday, January 11th, 16:30 - 18:00, TUM Department of Informatics, Garching-Forschungszentrum, Room MI HS 1
Organization:
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Slides: will be made available before each class in the eLearning plattform MOODLE.
- Grading is based on a final exam. Students can obtain a grade bonus (0.3) by solving exercises and presenting summaries of the lecture in the tutorial class.
- Due to the shortage of lecture halls only 40 students can be admitted to the course this semester. The registration does not work on first come first serve basis. Instead, please send your current transcript of records and a short letter of motivation to schwarzg
in.tum.de. The deadline for this is October 14th, 11:59pm. Your application will be accepted/rejected until October 16th. -
Lecture registration is opened from September 3rd until October 14th.
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Exercise registration opens on October 18th and is available until the end of the course. Please note that you need to be admitted to the lecture in order to be able to register for the tutorial class.
Literature:
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Lecture notes via MOODLE.
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M. Bichler: Market Design - A Linear Programming Approach to Auctions and Matching. Cambridge University Press. Available online via the TUM library.
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Y. Shoham and K. Leyton-Brown: Multiagent Systems: Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations. Available as PDF at: http://www.masfoundations.org/mas.pdf (Chapters 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12)
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N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos and V. Vazirani (editors): Algorithmic Game Theory. Available as PDF at: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sandholm/cs15-892F13/algorithmic-game-theory.pdf(Chapters 9 and 11 by Nisan)
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V. Krishna: Auction Theory (Chapters 16 and 17 on multi-object auctions)
Contact:
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Room 01.10.058Phone: 289 - 17528E-Mail: schwarzgin.tum.de