Maison d'édition:Publisher: Elsevier URL officiel:Official URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2013.06.012 Mention légale:Legal notice:In all cases accepted manuscripts should link to the formal publication via its DOI 1 Abstract:This paper presents a multiple-round timber auction simulation, developed in order to study various configurations of auction design. In this study, simultaneous sequential timber auctions are modelled and analyzed using agent-based simulation technology. As there are many individual items in the auction to be sold, the auction designer defines several rounds that are sequential at pre-defined intervals. At each round, the auction designer announces several simultaneous auctions. Since bidders are offered different items at each round, a mathematical linear programing model for selecting the best set of items to bid for is presented. Different bidding patterns are simulated and compared in various setup configurations. The most advanced of these strategies are adaptive and use agent-learning capability. The comparisons include the success rate of winning the auction and the winning price per m 3 . This study suggests an efficient bidding pattern for bidders to bid in order to achieve to their goal and increase their profit.Similarly, in order to increase profit, the auctioneer (i.e., the government) needs to control several auction parameters including the number of auctions per year, the lot size, the auction periodicity, and the number of bidders. This study also suggests parameters configurations that to maximize revenue for the auctioneer.

Maison d'édition:Publisher: Elsevier URL officiel:Official URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.07.004 Mention légale:Legal notice:In all cases accepted manuscripts should link to the formal publication via its DOI Abstract:The timber auction system currently used in the province of Québec, Canada, is a single unit auction, in which timber users bid on entire forest stands located within a specific area. In this procurement system, timber users (i.e., winners) are responsible for harvesting the entire stands and for reselling undesirable timber species to others. In order to improve the limits of this system, this paper proposes a sustainable auction system, referred to as time-based timber combinatorial auction. In this approach, time is not part of the definition of the goods for sale. It is used to valuate the good for sale with respect to their expected delivery period. Therefore, this system aims to simultaneously allocate multiple goods, or products in mixed forest stand, to multiple winners, and address the coordination of timber deliveries to their winners. The when delivery coordination must be manually negotiated among multi-stakeholder.

This paper presents a simulation-based analysis of a multiple-round timber combinatorial auction in the timber industry. Currently, most timber auctions are single-unit auctions (i.e., each forest stand is sold separately). However, other types of auctions could be applied to take advantage of the various needs of the bidders with respect to species, volumes, and quality. This study aims to analyze the use of combinatorial auction to this specific context using a simulation approach. Various number of auctions per year, periodicity, lot size, and number of bidders are considered as parameters to set up the different market configurations. The outcomes of both combinatorial auction and single-unit auction are compared with respect to different setup configurations. This analysis shows that combinatorial auction can bring more profit for both seller and buyer when the market is less competitive.