This paper studies multiple object auctions when there are two kinds of bidders: those interested in the bundle being sold (bundle bidders) and those that want one specific object only (unit bidders). The analysis has been motivated by the sale of spectrum rights in the United States.Using a...

I consider a model where a principal decides whether to produce one unit of an indivisible good (e.g. a private school) and which characteristics it will contain (emphasis on language or science). Agents (parents) are differentiated along two substitutable dimensions: a vertical parameter that...

This paper provides an elementary, non-technical, survey of auction theory, by introducing and describing some of the critical papers in the subject. The most important of these are reproduced in a companion book, The Economic Theory of Auctions, Paul Klemperer (ed.), Edward Elgar (pub.),...

We study the allocation of several heterogenous, commonly ranked objects to impatient agents with privately known characteristics who arrive sequentially according to a Poisson or renewal process. We analyze and compare the policies that maximize either welfare or revenue. We focus on two cases:...

This is a preliminary draft of an Invited Symposium paper for the World Congress of the Econometric Society to be held in Seattle in August 2000. We discuss the strong connections between auction theory and 'standard' economic theory, and argue that auction-theoretic tools and intuitions can...

The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry deterring behaviour. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems (we discuss radiospectrum and football TV-rights...

We study optimal contest design in situations where the designer can reward high performance agents with positive prizes and punish low performance agents with negative prizes. We link the optimal prize structure to the curvature of distribution of abilities in the population. In particular, we...

If bidders can acquire information during the auction the descending auction is no longer equivalent to a first-price-sealed-bid auction. Revenue equivalence does not hold. The incentive to acquire information can even be larger in a descending auction than in an ascending auction.

This paper explores the use of auctions for privatizing public assets. In our model, a single ‘insider’ bidder (e.g. incumbent management of a government-owned firm) possesses information about the asset’s risky value. In addition, bidders are privately informed about their costs of...

The experimental literature has documented that there is overbidding in second-price auctions, regardless of bidders' valuations. In contrast, in first-price auctions there tends to be overbidding for large valuations, but underbidding for small valuations. We show that the experimental evidence...