Asymmetric Auctions.

The revenue-equivalence theorm for auctions predicts that expected seller revenue is independent of the bidding rules, as long as equilibrium has the properties that the buyer with the highest reservation price wins and any buyer with the lowest possible reservation price has zero expected surplus. Thus, in particular, the two most common auction institutions--the open "English" and the sealed high-bid auction--equivalent despite their rather different strategic properties. Copyright 2000 by The Review of Economic Studies Limited