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...

I suggest explanations for the apparently puzzling bidding in the year 2000 British and German 3G telecom auctions. Relative-performance maximisation may have been important, but the outcome of the British auction seems to have been efficient. This paper bundles my comments on two papers...

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

An Equivalence Theorem between geometric structures and utility functions allows new methods for understanding preferences. Our classification of valuations into "Demand Types" incorporates existing definitions (substitutes, complements, "strong substitutes", etc.) and permits new ones. Our...

We generalize the War of Attrition model to allow for N + K firms competing for N prizes. Two special cases are of particular interest. First, if firms continue to pay their full costs after dropping out (as in a standard-setting context), each firm's exit time is independent both of K and of...

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex...

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex...

Price controls lead to misallocation of goods and encourage rent-seeking. The misallocation effect alone is enough to ensure that consumer surplus is always reduced by a price control in an otherwise-competitive market with convex demand if supply is more elastic than demand; or when demand is...

Price controls lead to misallocation of goods and encourage rent-seeking. The misallocation effect alone is enough to ensure that consumer surplus is always reduced by a price control in an otherwise-competitive market with convex demand if supply is more elastic than demand; or when demand is...