We study the complexity of bidding optimally in one-shot combinatorial auction mechanisms. Specifically, we consider the two most-commonly used payment rules: first-price and VCG-nearest. Prior work has largely assumed that bidders only submit bids on their bundles of interest. However, we show the surprising result that a single-minded bidder may lose an exponential amount of utility by playing his optimal simple strategy (only bidding on his bundle of interest) compared to playing his optimal complex strategy (which involves bidding on an exponential number of bundles). Our work suggests that it is important for future research on combinatorial auctions to fully take these effects into account.

中文翻译：

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组合拍卖中的简单竞标成本

我们研究了一次组合拍卖机制中最优投标的复杂性。具体来说，我们考虑两种最常用的付款规则：第一价格和最近的VCG。先前的工作在很大程度上假设投标人仅对他们的兴趣书包提交投标。但是，我们显示出令人惊讶的结果，即一心一意的竞标者通过玩最优的简单策略（仅对他的兴趣束竞标）会比玩其最优的复杂策略（涉及对指数数的竞标）失去指数级的效用。包）。我们的工作表明，对于组合拍卖的未来研究非常重要，要充分考虑这些影响。