Improved Truthful Mechanisms for Subadditive Combinatorial Auctions: Breaking the Logarithmic Barrier

Abstract: We present a computationally-efficient truthful mechanism for combinatorial auctions with subadditive bidders that achieves an $O((\log!\log{m})^3)$-approximation to the maximum welfare in expectation using $O(n)$ demand queries; here $m$ and $n$ are the number of items and bidders, respectively. This breaks the longstanding logarithmic barrier for the problem dating back to the $O(\log{m}\cdot\log!\log{m})$-approximation mechanism of Dobzinski from 2007. Along the way, we also improve and considerably simplify the state-of-the-art mechanisms for submodular bidders.