The supply function equilibrium provides a game-theoretic model of strategic bidding in oligopolistic wholesale electricity auctions. This paper presents an intuitive account of current understanding and shows how welfare losses depend on the number of firms in the market and their asymmetry....

Using the concept of market-distribution functions, we derive general optimality conditions for discriminatory divisible-good auctions, which are also applicable to Bertrand games and non-linear pricing. We introduce the concept of offer distribution function to analyze randomized offer curves,...

We consider a procurement auction, where each supplier has private costs and submits a stepped supply function. We solve for a Bayesian Nash equilibrium and show that the equilibrium has a price instability in the sense that a minor change in a supplier.s cost sometimes result in a major change...

We analyse how the market design influences the bidding behaviour in multi-unit auctions, such as wholesale electricity markets. It is shown that competition improves for increased market transparency and we identify circumstances where the auctioneer prefers uniform to discriminatory pricing....