Common Value Auctions and the Winner's Curse

Common Value Auctions and the Winner's Curse
Author: John H. Kagel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2009-04-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400830133

An invaluable account of how auctions work—and how to make them work Few forms of market exchange intrigue economists as do auctions, whose theoretical and practical implications are enormous. John Kagel and Dan Levin, complementing their own distinguished research with papers written with other specialists, provide a new focus on common value auctions and the "winner's curse." In such auctions the value of each item is about the same to all bidders, but different bidders have different information about the underlying value. Virtually all auctions have a common value element; among the burgeoning modern-day examples are those organized by Internet companies such as eBay. Winners end up cursing when they realize that they won because their estimates were overly optimistic, which led them to bid too much and lose money as a result. The authors first unveil a fresh survey of experimental data on the winner's curse. Melding theory with the econometric analysis of field data, they assess the design of government auctions, such as the spectrum rights (air wave) auctions that continue to be conducted around the world. The remaining chapters gauge the impact on sellers' revenue of the type of auction used and of inside information, show how bidders learn to avoid the winner's curse, and present comparisons of sophisticated bidders with college sophomores, the usual guinea pigs used in laboratory experiments. Appendixes refine theoretical arguments and, in some cases, present entirely new data. This book is an invaluable, impeccably up-to-date resource on how auctions work--and how to make them work.

Two Essays on Bidding in Multi-unit Common Value Auctions

Two Essays on Bidding in Multi-unit Common Value Auctions
Author: Minjie Shao
Publisher:
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2010
Genre: Auctions
ISBN:

This dissertation consists of two essays on the topic of bidding in multi-unit common value auction. Essay one examines the role of capacity constraint on the auction results and bidding behavior. We consider a general case where bidders are unconstrained, and a second setting where bidders are capacity constrained. We document downward sloping demand curves for individual bidders. Bidders shade their bids by submitting quantity-price pairs and spreading their bids. The winner's curse is strong in the unconstrained treatment, but we find no evidence of the winner's curse when bidding constraints are imposed. Unconstrained bidders shade bids significantly more and their quantity-weighted prices are much lower than those in the constrained treatment. Interacting with the information structure, the capacity constraint has a significant impact on the auction results including the market clearing price, market efficiency, and the degree of market concentration. We provide evidence that efficient price discovery in multi-unit auctions with diverse information is possible, but careful attention to auction design will make this outcome more likely. Essay two examines how the introduction of a noncompetitive bidding option affects outcomes in a multi-unit uniform-price auction. The experimental design incorporates many of the characteristics of the markets that pertain to the issuance of new equity securities. Important features of the bidding environment include endogenous bidder entry, costly information acquisition, bidders that differ by capacity constraint, and substantial uncertainty with respect to the intrinsic value. We use a standard uniform-price auction as our baseline setting where only competitive bids are accepted. Our results show that introducing the noncompetitive bidding option improves auction performance by increasing revenue and reducing price error. Underpricing is found in both treatments, but is less severe in the presence of the noncompetitive bidding option. The incorporation of this option significantly increases both the small bidder participation rate and allocation, and reduces the incentive for small bidders to free ride by submitting extremely high bids. Under both treatments, information acquisition increases large bidders' profits but proves unprofitable for small bidders, and pricing accuracy is increasing in the rate of information acquisition.

An Experimental Study on Sequential Auctions with Privately Known Capacities

An Experimental Study on Sequential Auctions with Privately Known Capacities
Author: Luca Corazzini
Publisher:
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

We experimentally study bidding behavior in sequential first-price procurement auctions where bidders' capacity constraints are private information. Treatment differs in the ex-ante probability distribution of sellers' capacities and in the (exogenous) probability that the second auction is actually implemented. Our results show that: (i) bidding behavior in the second auction conforms with sequential rationality; (ii) while first auction's bids negatively depend on capacity, bidders seem unable to recognize this link when, at the end of the first auction, they state their beliefs on the opponent's capacity. To rationalize this inconsistency between bids and beliefs, we conjecture that bidding in the first auction is also affected by a hidden, behavioral type - related to the strategic sophistication of bidders - that obfuscates the link between capacity and bids. Building on this intuition, we show that a simple level-k model may help explain the inconsistency.

Essays on Almost Common Value Auctions

Essays on Almost Common Value Auctions
Author: Susan L. Rose
Publisher:
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2006
Genre: Auctions
ISBN:

Abstract: In a common value auction, the value of the object for sale is the same to all bidders. In an almost common value auction, one bidder, the advantaged bidder, values the object slightly more than the other, regular bidders. With only two bidders, a slight advantage is predicted to have an explosive effect on the outcome and revenue of an auction. The advantaged bidder always wins and revenue decreases dramatically relative to the pure common value auction. Ascending auctions, which reduce to two bidders, are thought to be particularly vulnerable to the explosive effect, which may discourage entry. My dissertation investigates the explosive effect in experimental English clock auctions. The first essay, "An Experimental Investigation of the Explosive Effect in Almost Common Value Auctions," uses a two-bidder wallet game to test these predictions. I find the effect of an advantage to be proportional, not explosive, confirming past studies. I develop a behavioral model that predicts the proportional effect and test it against the data. The model has two types of bidders: naïve and sophisticated. Naïve bidders use a rule of thumb bidding function while sophisticated bidders are fully rational and account for the probability that a rival is naïve or sophisticated when best responding. I was able to classify subjects as naïve or sophisticated, and those classified as sophisticated do have a better understanding of the game. However, all subjects suffered from the winner's curse, which may have masked the explosive effect and been exacerbated by the structure of the wallet game. The second essay, "Bidding in Almost Common Value Auctions: An Experiment," moves the analysis to a four bidder auction to directly test the entry predictions. I used a more intuitive common value structure and controlled for the winner's curse by using subjects with prior experience in common value auctions. I found that although subjects did not suffer from the winner's curse, there is no evidence of an explosive effect. Advantaged bidders won no more auctions than predicted by chance. Entry and auction revenue were unaffected by the presence of advantaged bidders.

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.

Almost Common Value Auctions

Almost Common Value Auctions
Author: Susan L. Rose
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

In almost common value auctions one bidder has a higher (private) value for the item than the other bidders. Theory predicts that even a small private value advantage can have an explosive effect in English auctions, with advantaged bidders always winning and sharp decreases in revenue. These predictions fail to materialize for experienced bidders who have learned to avoid the worst effects of the winner's curse. Bidding is better characterized as proportional, with advantaged bidders tending to bid as in a pure common value auction after adding their private value advantage to their estimated value of the item.