The symmetric equilibrium of third-price auctions is characterized. It makes a number of contrasting predictions relative to firms and second-price auctions: bids exceed private values, the marginal effects on bids of an increase in private values is greater than one, increasing numbers of...

The risk-neutral independent-private-values (IPV) auction model produces curious results regarding the use of reservation prices: no matter how many bidders, the seller should announce a fixed reservation price above his true value. This is notable since the seller gains by adopting an...

Experiments compare bidding behavior of experienced business executives in the construction contract industry with that of student subjects in efforts to identify differences in behavior between "naive" and "expert" subjects. Qualitatively similar behavior is reported across subject pools as in...