Data from wine auctions indicates that identical products sold sequentially typically follow a decreasing pattern of prices, known as the afternoon effect. This is explained, for both first and second price auctions, by appealing to risk averse bidders. Earlier bids are then equal to expected...

We consider a common value auction model with bidder participation determined jointly by nature and by bidder optimization. In this framework, an increase in the reserve price as two effects: it deters marginal bidders and it deters bidders from becoming informed. We then derive a test statistic...

We examine equlibria in sequential auctions where a seller can post a reserve price but, if the auction fails to result in a sale, can commit keeping the object off the market only for an exogenously fixed period of time. We restrict attention to enviornments where bidders have independent...