We study security-bid auctions in which bidders compete by bidding with securities whose payments are contingent on the realized value of the asset being sold. Such auctions are commonly used, both formally and informally. In formal auctions, the seller restricts bids to an ordered set, such as...

We estimate the effect of ordering by value on revenues in sequential art auctions held by Sotheby's and Christie's. We exploit a pre-determined rotation of which of these two houses holds their auction first during auction week in New York City. When the house that goes first has relatively...