Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature

Abstract Auction models have proved to be attractive to structural econometricians who, since the late 1980s, have made substantial progress in identifying and estimating these rich game-theoretic models of bidder behavior. We provide a guide to the literature in which we contrast the various informational structures (paradigms) commonly assumed by researchers and uncover the evolution of the field. We highlight major contributions within each paradigm and benchmark modifications and extensions to these core models. Lastly, we discuss special topics that have received substantial attention among auction researchers in recent years, including auctions with risk-averse bidders, unobserved auction-specific heterogeneity, accounting for an unobserved number of bidders as well as endogenous entry, auction dynamics, testing informational paradigms, and auctions for multiple objects.