Sepehr Assadi, Princeton University

Abstract

A longstanding open problem in Algorithmic Mechanism Design is to design computationally-efficient truthful mechanisms for (approximately) maximizing welfare in combinatorial auctions with submodular bidders. The first such mechanism was obtained by Dobzinski, Nisan, and Schapira [STOC’06] who gave an O(log^2 m)-approximation where m is number of items. This problem has been studied extensively since, culminating in an O(sqrt{log m})-approximation mechanism by Dobzinski [STOC’16].

In this talk, we present a computationally-efficient truthful mechanism with approximation ratio that improves upon the state-of-the-art by an exponential factor. In particular, our mechanism achieves an O((log log m)^3)-approximation in expectation, uses only O(n) demand queries, and has universal truthfulness guarantee.

Based on joint work with Sahil Singla; to appear in FOCS 19.