I study the design of auctions of natural resources, such as oil or mineral rights. A good auction design promotes both an efficient assignment of rights and competitive revenues for the seller. The structure of bidder preferences and the degree of competition are key factors in determining the...

In this article, we examine the role of per-unit bidding rules on firm-level contractual performance. In particular, we test the hypothesis that buyers will act on incentives to under-perform when bids are accepted in per-unit form. The empirical application uses data from per-unit auction sales...