Auctions with severely bounded communication

We study auctions with severe bounds on the communication allowed: each bidder may only transmit t bits of information to the auctioneer. We consider both welfare-maximizing and revenue-maximizing auctions under this communication restriction. For both measures, we determine the optimal auction and show that the loss incurred relative to unconstrained auctions is mild. We prove unsurprising properties of these kinds of auctions, e.g. that discrete prices are informationally efficient, as well as some surprising properties, e.g. that asymmetric auctions are better than symmetric ones.

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