There were enormous differences in the revenues from the European "third generation" (3G, or "UMTS") mobile-phone license auctions, from 20 Euros per capita in Switzerland to 650 Euros per capita in the U.K., though the values of the licences sold were similar. Poor auction designs in some...

We compare the two most common bidding processes for selling a company or other asset when participation is costly to buyers. In an auction all entry decisions are made prior to any bidding. In a sequential bidding process earlier entrants can make bids before later entrants choose whether to...

The authors analyze the evolution of duopolists' prices and market shares in an infinite-period market with consumer switching costs in which in every period new consumers arrive and a fraction of old consumers leaves. They show prices (and profits) are higher than without switching costs and...

The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry-deterring behavior. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems. The Anglo-Dutch auction - a hybrid of the sealed-bid...

This article examines a two-period differentiated-products duopoly in which consumers are partially "locked in" by switching costs that they face in the second period. While these switching costs naturally make demand more inelastic in the second period, they also do so in the first period,...

We analyze the Nash eqilibria of a one-stage game in which the nature of the strategic variables (prices or quantities) is determined endogenously. Duopolists producing differentiated products simultaneously choose either a quantity to produce or a price to charge. In the absence of exogenous...

Committing to prices that result in rationing may be more profitable than setting market-clearing prices if customers must make sunk investments to enter the market. Rationing is ex post inefficient, but it gives more surplus to lower-value customers who are the marginal consumers the...