Abstract
The elegant Vickrey Clarke Groves (VCG) mechanism is well-known for the strong properties it offers: dominant truth-revealing strategies, efficiency and weak budget-balance in quite general settings. Despite this, it suffers from several drawbacks, prominently susceptibility to collusion. By jointly setting their bids, colluders may increase their utility by achieving lower prices for their items. The colluders can use monetary transfers to share this utility, but they must reach an agreement regarding their actions. We analyze the agreements that are likely to arise through a cooperative game theoretic approach, transforming the auction setting into a cooperative game. We examine both the setting of a multi-unit auction as well as path procurement auctions.
Published Version
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