Nonparametric Identification of First-Price Auctions with Non-Separable Unobserved Heterogeneity

We propose a novel methodology for nonparametric identification of first-price auction models with independent private values, which allows for one-dimensional auctionspecific unobserved heterogeneity, based on recent results from the econometric literature on nonclassical measurement error in Hu and Schennach (2008). Our approach can accommodate a wide variety of applications in which some location of the conditional distribution of bids (e.g. min or max of the support, mean, etc.) is increasing in the unobserved heterogeneity. This includes settings in which the econometrician fails to observe the reserve price, the cost of bidding, the number of bidders, or some factor (“quality”) with a non-linear effect on bidder values.