Protocols and strategies for automated multi-attribute auctions

In this paper, we consider a model of a procurement multi-attribute auction in which the sales item is defined by several attributes, the buyer is the auctioneer, and the sellers are the bidders. Such domains include auctions on task allocation, services, or compound items. The buyer announces a scoring rule, according to its preferences, before the auction starts, and each seller places a bid, which describes the attributes of the item it offers for sale. First, we consider a variation of the first-price sealed-bid protocol, and we provide optimal and stable strategies for the buyer agent and for the seller agents participating in the multi-attribute auction. In addition, we analyze the buyer's expected revenue and suggest an optimal scoring rule that can be announced. Second, we consider four variations of the English auction for the case of a multi-attribute item, and we prove that, given some assumptions, they all converge to the same result. We also discuss which variation is preferred for different types of environments. Moreover, we show under which conditions, announcing the truth about buyer preferences is the optimal strategy for the buyer.