In this dissertation, I explore bidders’ behavior in multiple auctions which are conducted sequentially or simultaneously. The first and the second chapters examine buyers’ bidding behaviors in an environment of multiple simultaneous auctions and show that the wildly-used assumption of proxy...

Research has demonstrated that the effects of intellectual property right (IPR) protection on firm research and competitive strategies are varied. This dissertation quantifies the dynamic effects of IPR protection along different dimensions. First, I show that countries choose different levels...

This dissertation explores several aspects of the theory in industrial organization.The first chapter builds a model with two cost asymmetric firms who not only have Cournot competition in the spot market but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. It is shown that with forward...

We characterize an optimal mechanism for a seller with one unit of a good facing N ≥ 3 buyers and a single competitor who sells another identical unit in a second-price auction. Buyers who do not get the seller's good compete in the competitor's subsequent auction. The mechanism features...

We review the issues involved in designing a mechanism for allocating resource rights. We focus on the case of exploration and development rights for oil and gas leases in U.S. federal lands to highlight the tradeoffs at play. The main issues concern the design of the lease contract, the design...

This paper describes an ongoing research project, in which we examine recent trends in bidding for offshore oil and gas leases, and the exploration and development of leases after they are sold. We review empirical findings regarding bidder participation and bidding for the period 1954 through...