Bid Determination in Simultaneous Auctions: An Agent Architecture

Justin Boyan and Amy Greenwald

Abstract

This paper is concerned with computational problems that arise in the design of bidding agents for simultaneous auctions. Three natural bid determination (BD) problems are identified---allocation, acquisition, and completion. The paper argues: (i) BD in double-sided auctions, where goods can be sold as well as bought, can be formally reduced to the problem of BD in single-sided auctions; and (ii) BD problems in simultaneous auctions are isomorphic to common variants of the winner determination problem in combinatorial auctions.