This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1954 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative, signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop tests of rational and...

This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1954 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative, signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop tests of rational and...

This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1954 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative, signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop a test of equilibrium...

We review the issues involved in designing a mechanism for allocating resource rights. We focus on the case of exploration and development rights for oil and gas leases in US federal lands to highlight the trade-offs at play. The main issues concern the design of the lease contract, the design...

Despite substantial legal evidence of collusion in auctions, there has been very little theoretical or empirical work on this subject by economists. This survey paper discusses mechanisms that are likely to facilitate collusion in auctions, as well as methods of detecting the presence of these...