Why do bidders in buyer-determined procurement auctions often bid above the lowest observed bid over the course of the auction? Are such bidding patterns meaningful? In this research the authors propose that since bidders are differentiated in their value to the buyer and competition in these...

Even though auctions are capturing an increasing share of commerce, they are typically treated in the theoretical economics literature as isolated. That is, an auction is typically treated as a single seller facing multiple buyers or as a single buyer facing multiple sellers. In this paper, we...