This paper considers bidding environments with pure common values, in which bidders are not equally well informed. We construct the optimal selling mechanism and ask how bidder asymmetry affects the seller's expected payoff. With an optimal mechanism, the seller benefits from bidder asymmetry:...

We study endogenous participation in asymmetric second price auctions where one bidder is "special". We show seller revenue decreases whenever the special bidder becomes more dominant in the sense of FOSD, or more generally whenever the other bidders' profits are reduced. We also establish an...

Many acquisitions are conducted by clubs, i.e., coalitions of acquirers that submit a single bid. We present a novel analysis of club bidding where the club creates value by aggregating, at least partially, bidders' values. We show that club formation can lead to higher acquisition prices when...