A Practical Combinatorial Clock Exchange for Spectrum Licenses

A centralized combinatorial exchange has been considered as a means to enable efficient restructuring of spectrum holdings by allowing traders to buy and sell spectrum resources. We propose a new, two-sided, multiple-round, combinatorial clock exchange mechanism that enables traders to specify reserve prices and submit consolidated bundle orders on spectrum assets to be bought and sold. Any trader may submit multiple orders over several rounds. A trading agent's order can only be executed when it matches with bids and asks from one or more other agents. Acceptable bid and ask prices are adjusted each round to decrease the spread, and the final, market-clearing trades are executed to maximize the gains from trade. This paper outlines the clock mechanism and presents a new approach for allocation of surplus among the market-clearing agents to maximize incentives for participation.