Title: Mean-field equilibria of dynamic auctions
Tutor: Ramesh Johari (Stanford University)

Abstract:
This tutorial will survey recent progress in the use of mean field
models for analysis of strategic
interactions in dynamic auction markets. Dynamic auctions can be
viewed as a significant special
class of dynamic stochastic games; in these games agents’ actions
directly affect underlying state
variables that influence their payoff. Dynamic auctions are of wide
interest to the EC community,
including sponsored search markets, online marketplaces such as eBay,
and dynamic resource sharing markets (such as cloud services). In
this tutorial we will discuss the challenges in analyzing
these auctions, how mean field models simplify our life, and results
and applications.

The tutorial will be self-contained and require some mathematical
maturity and a basic background in game theory, but it will not be
assumed that the audience members are experts in dynamic games. A
significant goal for the tutorial would be to introduce MFE to
engineers and computer scientists actively working on the design and
implementation of dynamic auctions.