# Approximately Optimal Mechanism Design

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the limitations of traditional optimal mechanism design and advocates for approximately optimal mechanisms that are more practical and easier to implement in real-world applications.

## Contribution

It introduces the concept of approximately optimal mechanisms, addressing issues like communication and computational complexity in traditional designs.

## Key findings

- Approximately optimal mechanisms reduce complexity.
- Relaxed goals enable analysis of previously intractable problems.
- Practical applications include spectrum auctions and online advertising.

## Abstract

Optimal mechanism design enjoys a beautiful and well-developed theory, and also a number of killer applications. Rules of thumb produced by the field influence everything from how governments sell wireless spectrum licenses to how the major search engines auction off online advertising. There are, however, some basic problems for which the traditional optimal mechanism design approach is ill-suited---either because it makes overly strong assumptions, or because it advocates overly complex designs. This survey reviews several common issues with optimal mechanisms, including exorbitant communication, computation, and informational requirements; and it presents several examples demonstrating that passing to the relaxed goal of an approximately optimal mechanism allows us to reason about fundamental questions that seem out of reach of the traditional theory.