We investigate equilibria of sealed-bid second price auctions with bidder participation costs in the independent private values environment. We focus on equilibria in which bidders use cut-off strategies (bid the valuation if it is greater than a certain cut-off point, otherwise do not...

We study the optimal auction problem with participation costs in the symmetric independent private values setting, where bidders know their valuations when they make independent participation decisions. After characterizing the optimal auction in terms of participation cutoffs, we provide an...