Divisible Good Auctions with Asymmetric Information

Divisible Good Auctions with Asymmetric Information
Author: Emmanuel Morales-Camargo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

An experimental approach is used to compare bidding behavior and auction performance in uniform-price and discriminatory auctions when there is incomplete information concerning the common value of the auctioned good. In a symmetric information environment, the different auction formats provide the same average revenue. However, when information is asymmetric the discriminatory auction results in higher average revenue than the uniform-price auction. The volatility of revenue is higher in the uniform-price auctions in all treatments. The results, therefore, provide support for the use of the discriminatory format. Subject characteristics and measures of experience in recent auctions are found to be useful in explaining bidding behavior.

Market Power and Welfare in Asymmetric Divisible Good Auctions

Market Power and Welfare in Asymmetric Divisible Good Auctions
Author: Carolina Manzano
Publisher:
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2016
Genre: Auctions
ISBN:

We analyze a divisible good uniform-price auction that features two groups each with a finite number of identical bidders. Equilibrium is unique, and the relative market power of a group increases with the precision of its private information but declines with its transaction costs. In line with empirical evidence, we find that an increase in transaction costs and/or a decrease in the precision of a bidding group's information induces a strategic response from the other group, which thereafter attenuates its response to both private information and prices. A "stronger" bidding group -- which has more precise private information, faces lower transaction costs, and is more oligopsonistic -- has more market power and so will behave competitively only if it receives a higher per capita subsidy rate. When the strong group values the asset no less than the weak group, the expected deadweight loss increases with the quantity auctioned and also with the degree of payoff asymmetries. Market power and the deadweight loss may be negatively associated.

Asset Pricing under Asymmetric Information

Asset Pricing under Asymmetric Information
Author: Markus K. Brunnermeier
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2001-01-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191606928

Asset prices are driven by public news and information that is often dispersed among many market participants. These agents try to infer each other's information by analyzing price processes. In the past two decades, theoretical research in financial economics has significantly advanced our understanding of the informational aspects of price processes. This book provides a detailed and up-to-date survey of this important body of literature. The book begins by demonstrating how to model asymmetric information and higher-order knowledge. It then contrasts competitive and strategic equilibrium concepts under asymmetric information. It also illustrates the dependence of information efficiency and allocative efficiency on the security structure and the linkage between both efficiency concepts. No-Trade theorems and market breakdowns due to asymmetric information are then explained, and the existence of bubbles under symmetric and asymmetric information is investigated. The remainder of the survey is devoted to contrasting different market microstructure models that demonstrate how asymmetric information affects asset prices and traders' information , which provide a theoretical explanation for technical analysis and illustrate why some investors "chase the trend." The reader is then introduced to herding models and informational cascades, which can arise in a setting where agents' decision-making is sequential. The insights derived from herding models are used to provide rational explanations for stock market crashes. Models in which all traders are induced to search for the same piece of information are then presented to provide a deeper insight into Keynes' comparison of the stock market with a beauty contest. The book concludes with a brief summary of bank runs and their connection to financial crises.

When Less (Potential Demand) is More (Revenue)

When Less (Potential Demand) is More (Revenue)
Author: Orly Sade
Publisher:
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2005
Genre:
ISBN:

We show that asymmetry in bidders' capacity constraints plays an important role in inhibiting collusion and promoting competitive outcomes in multi-unit common value auctions. This effect seems to be related to the increased difficulty of coordination when there are fundamental differences between bidders. The discriminatory auction is shown to be more susceptible to collusion than is the uniform-price auction and consequently asymmetry in capacity constraints plays a more important role in the discriminatory auction. These results suggest that the revenue maximizing auction format may depend heavily on a variety of factors specific to particular auction settings.

Value of Information in Endogenously Asymmetric Dynamic Auction

Value of Information in Endogenously Asymmetric Dynamic Auction
Author: Sudip Gupta
Publisher:
Total Pages: 53
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

Design of selling strategies for heterogenous divisible goods auctions with endogenous informational asymmetry is an important policy question. This problem can be analyzed empirically using the distributions of ex- ante valuations of bidders, the value of information and the degree of informational asymmetry. In this paper, I estimate these by a three step procedure from a dynamic auction model with endogenous informational asymmetry. The seller sells multiple goods via a sequence of first price auctions. While bidders are ex-ante symmetric, the first period winner has an informational advantage in the second period bidding game and becomes a strong bidder. This endogenous asymmetry leads to excessive entry and overbidding in the first period relative to a one period game. I characterize the equilibrium in terms of the observed bid distribution and entry behavior. I apply a three step estimation procedure to data on OCS oil tract auctions. I find that the federal government is only ecovering 23% of the 'strong' buyers' willingness to pay in the second period. Bidders perceive the value of information to be at most 12% of their first period's informational rent. A new semiparametric structural test cannot reject the hypothesis of the strong bidder's informational superiority in the second period and sets it at 18% relative to the weak bidder. I use the estimates to design alternate mechanisms and empirically show that government's revenue increases when the asymmetry is taken into account in allocating the goods.

Asymmetric Information in Common-value Auctions and Contests

Asymmetric Information in Common-value Auctions and Contests
Author: Lucas A. Rentschler
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

In common-value auctions and contests economic agents often have varying levels of information regarding the value of the good to be allocated. Using theoretical and experimental analysis, I examine the effect of such information asymmetry on behavior. Chapter II considers a model in which players compete in two sequential contests. The winner of the first contest (the incumbent) privately observes the value of the prize, which provides private information if the prizes are related. Relative to the case where the prizes are independent, the incumbent is strictly better off, and the other contestants (the challengers) are strictly worse off. This increases the incentive to win the first contest such that the sum of expected effort over both contests increases relative to the case of independent prizes. Chapter III experimentally considers the role of asymmetric information in first-price, sealed-bid, common-value auctions. Bidders who observe a private signal tend to overbid relative to Nash equilibrium predictions. Uninformed bidders, however, tend to underbid relative to the Nash equilibrium. Chapter IV examines asymmetric information in one-shot common-value all-pay auctions and lottery contests from both experimental and theoretical perspectives As predicted by theory, asymmetric information yields information rents for the informed bidder in both all-pay auctions and lottery contests.

A Walrasian Theory of Sovereign Debt Auctions with Asymmetric Information

A Walrasian Theory of Sovereign Debt Auctions with Asymmetric Information
Author: Harold Linh Cole
Publisher:
Total Pages: 67
Release: 2018
Genre: Auctions
ISBN:

How does investors' information about a country's fundamentals, and the fact that this information may be asymmetrically held, affect a country's financing cost? Motivated by this question, and by the observation that sovereign bonds are usually auctioned in large lots to a large number of potential investors, we develop a novel model of auctions with asymmetric information that relies on price-taking and rational expectations. We first characterize sovereign bond prices for different degrees of asymmetric information under two commonly-used protocols: discriminatory-price auctions and uniform-price auctions. We show that there is trade-off between these protocols if information is sufficiently asymmetric: expected bond yields are higher when pricing is discriminatory, but yield volatility is higher when pricing is uniform. We then study endogenous information acquisition and find that (i) discriminatory auctions may display multiple welfare-ranked informational equilibria, and (ii) investors are less likely to acquire information in uniform auctions.

Common Value Auctions with Asymmetric Bidder Information

Common Value Auctions with Asymmetric Bidder Information
Author: Priyodorshi Banerjee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

We study common value auctions with two asymmetrically informed bidders using a simple binary model. A unique, generically asymmetric, mixed-strategy equilibrium exists for the first-price auction. Bidders get positive payoffs, with a superiorly informed bidder getting a higher payoff. One of the bidders submits a higher bid than the other on average: aggressive bidding is not necessarily associated with inferiority of information. A continuum of pure-strategy equilibria exist for the second-price auction. If bidders play the unique symmetric equilibrium strategies, second-price auctions are generically revenue-dominant. A change in the degree of asymmetry in general has an ambiguous effect on revenue.

Putting Auction Theory to Work

Putting Auction Theory to Work
Author: Paul Milgrom
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2004-01-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1139449168

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications. It is written by a leading economic theorist whose suggestions guided the creation of the new spectrum auction designs. Aimed at graduate students and professionals in economics, the book gives the most up-to-date treatments of both traditional theories of 'optimal auctions' and newer theories of multi-unit auctions and package auctions, and shows by example how these theories are used. The analysis explores the limitations of prominent older designs, such as the Vickrey auction design, and evaluates the practical responses to those limitations. It explores the tension between the traditional theory of auctions with a fixed set of bidders, in which the seller seeks to squeeze as much revenue as possible from the fixed set, and the theory of auctions with endogenous entry, in which bidder profits must be respected to encourage participation.