Information Revelation in an English Auction

This paper asks whether revealing the identity of dropping bidders is in the interest of the auctioneer in an ascending price auction with asymmetric bidders and interdependent values. We show that revealing no information about bidders’ identities may increase the expected revenue. In this setup, we identify the underlying mechanism for the failure of the often-heard recommendation that more transparency increases revenue. We also consider bidder ranking over auction formats.