politically important. I illustrate with some disastrous government auctions, but also show the value of economic theory. …

, predatory, and entry deterring behaviour. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems (we … discuss radiospectrum and football TV-rights auctions, electricity markets, and takeover battles), and the Anglo-Dutch auction … – a hybrid of the sealed-bid and ascending auctions may often perform better. However, everything depends on the details …

critical papers in the subject. The most important of these are reproduced in a companion book, The Economic Theory of Auctions … the basic analysis of optimal auctions, the revenue equivalence theorem, and marginal revenues. Subsequent sections … address risk-aversion, affiliation, asymmetries, entry, collusion, multi-unit auctions, double auctions, royalties, incentive …

economic settings that do not, at first sight, look like auctions. We also discuss some more obvious applications, especially …

We analyse bidding incentives and present evidence on takeover premiums in Sweden’s mandatory bankruptcy auctions. The …, there is no evidence that the auctions produce lower (fire-sale) premiums when economic conditions lead one to expect …

those with direct negotiations. Taken together, these results indicate a significant efficiency enhancing effect of auctions. …Public agencies rely on two key modes to procure goods and services: auctions and direct negotiations. The relative … passenger railway services in Germany, where regional agencies can use auctions and negotiations to procure regional passenger …

I suggest explanations for the apparently puzzling bidding in the year 2000 British and German 3G telecom auctions …. This paper bundles my comments on two papers presented at the December 2001 CES Ifo conference on the telecom auctions …. (For those readers new to the subject, I recommend first reading ‘How (Not) to Run Auctions: the European 3G Telecom …