A Unified Classification Ecosystem for Auctions

Abstract

Auctions have known considerable and continuous growth during the last decades due to their interesting properties in price formation when the value of goods traded is not known or varies. The systematic research in the area of auctions has advanced considerably since William Vickrey’s seminal paper on 1961. Although earlier research has been based mainly on Microeconomics and Games Theory, recent advances extended relevant research in Operational Research and Information Technology. Today, auctions and their applications form a challenging topic not only for economists but for operational researchers, marketers, logisticians and management engineers as well. This paper provides an overview of recent literature in auction theory, focusing on contemporary auction techniques and proposes an Auctions Classification Ecosystem (ACE) that encompasses previous works and new developments in the area. The proposed unified classification approach encompasses auction features and mechanism design parameters in a single scheme. This scheme facilitates the understanding of auction characteristics and supports auction practitioners in designing the appropriate format depending on the application requirements.