Milgrom and Weber's General Symmetric Model of auctions is adapted to an extensive form in which seller first announces rules for an auction, then each of a pool of potential bidders makes a rational choice whether to participate, i.e., to acquire some initial information at an opportunity cost....

Experimental methods are currently being used extensively to elicit subjective values for commodities and projects. Three methodological problems are not addressed in this emerging literature. The first is the potential for laboratory responses to be censored by field opportunities; the second...

We attempt a more realistic abstraction of an English (oral ascending) auction than the standard, in Milgrom and Weber [1982]. In particular, the assumptions that exists are irrevocable and necessarily public are dropped. In the model, the price rises in a stylization of an auctioneer...

Truthful revelation is a dominant strategy in both second-price and English (oral ascending bid) private-values auctions. Controlled observations of English auctions are largely consistent with the dominant strategy prediction, but laboratory second-price auctions exhibit substantial and...