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Towards better models of externalities in sponsored search auctions

Towards better models of externalities in sponsored search auctions
Towards better models of externalities in sponsored search auctions

Sponsored Search Auctions (SSAs) arguably represent the problem at the intersection of computer science and economics with the deepest applications in real life. Within the realm of SSAs, the study of the effects that showing one ad has on the other ads, a.k.a. externalities in economics, is of utmost importance and has so far attracted the attention of much research. However, even the basic question of modeling the problem has so far escaped a definitive answer. The popular cascade model is arguably too idealized to really describe the phenomenon yet it allows a good comprehension of the problem. Other models, instead, describe the setting more adequately but are too complex to permit a satisfactory theoretical analysis. In this work, we attempt to get the best of both approaches: firstly, we define a number of general mathematical formulations for the problem in the attempt to have a rich description of externalities in SSAs and, secondly, prove a host of results drawing a nearly complete picture about the computational complexity of the problem. We complement these approximability results with some considerations about mechanism design in our context.

Externalities, Mechanism design, Sponsored search auction
0304-3975
1-13
Gatti, N.
5476e91a-6c68-4a1c-a06a-523e5da4776a
Rocco, M.
6ea18fc7-cf26-494d-8d10-1b42c34df7ed
Serafino, P.
e0138324-dca1-4577-9af2-80583b80e1f4
Ventre, C.
9abfa84f-266a-4296-82f1-ae3bdecaea38
Gatti, N.
5476e91a-6c68-4a1c-a06a-523e5da4776a
Rocco, M.
6ea18fc7-cf26-494d-8d10-1b42c34df7ed
Serafino, P.
e0138324-dca1-4577-9af2-80583b80e1f4
Ventre, C.
9abfa84f-266a-4296-82f1-ae3bdecaea38

Gatti, N., Rocco, M., Serafino, P. and Ventre, C. (2018) Towards better models of externalities in sponsored search auctions. Theoretical Computer Science, 1-13. (doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2018.06.011).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Sponsored Search Auctions (SSAs) arguably represent the problem at the intersection of computer science and economics with the deepest applications in real life. Within the realm of SSAs, the study of the effects that showing one ad has on the other ads, a.k.a. externalities in economics, is of utmost importance and has so far attracted the attention of much research. However, even the basic question of modeling the problem has so far escaped a definitive answer. The popular cascade model is arguably too idealized to really describe the phenomenon yet it allows a good comprehension of the problem. Other models, instead, describe the setting more adequately but are too complex to permit a satisfactory theoretical analysis. In this work, we attempt to get the best of both approaches: firstly, we define a number of general mathematical formulations for the problem in the attempt to have a rich description of externalities in SSAs and, secondly, prove a host of results drawing a nearly complete picture about the computational complexity of the problem. We complement these approximability results with some considerations about mechanism design in our context.

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Towards Better Models of Externalities in Sponsored Search - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 4 June 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 15 June 2018
Additional Information: Author no longer at Soton. Arxiv copy is AM.
Keywords: Externalities, Mechanism design, Sponsored search auction

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 421731
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/421731
ISSN: 0304-3975
PURE UUID: 51961750-9664-4d0c-a55b-0f612608f326
ORCID for P. Serafino: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5366-3153

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 26 Jun 2018 16:30
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 04:17

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Contributors

Author: N. Gatti
Author: M. Rocco
Author: P. Serafino ORCID iD
Author: C. Ventre

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