The Continuous Combinatorial Auction Architecture

The paper reviews the prominent features of a continuous, combinatorial auction. The Section 1 is an introduction that provides some background research and overview. The continuous combinatorial auction evolved in response to experience with combinatorial auctions based on bidding rounds. The background material helps with the contrasts related to auction architectures. Section 2 consists of a few background definitions. Section 3 develops the rules and procedures, which are central features of the mechanism. Section 4 outlines important operational features such as information and query functions. As should become clear, the continuous combinatorial auction does not compute or even use prices per item. The fashioning of bids on packages of items is not guided by a sum of the prices of items in the package. Section 5 contains illustrations of the interfaces, which summarize how the mechanism operates with human participants. The section consists of a series of screen shots that illustrate how the system looks from the point of view of a bidder. Section 6 addresses performance in experiments and in the field.