This paper considers the optimality of setting a secret reserve price in ascending auctions. Contrary to intuition, an ascending auction is no longer equivalent to a second price auction when the reserve price is secret. We determine the seller's optimal reserve price policy when the bidders'...

This article analyzes the properties of the so-called « T2A » DRG-based hospital payment policy implemented in France since 2004. The limits of this policy, whose aim is to induce productive efficiency, are studied in the first part. It is shown that serious drawbacks come from the lack of...