One of the main elements of the current reform of electricity trading in the UK is the change from a uniform price auction in the wholesale market to discriminatory pricing. We analyse this change under two polar market structures (perfectly competitive and monopolistic supply), with demand...

We propose a new, easy-to-implement, class of payment rules, "Reference Rules", to make core-selecting package auctions more robust.  Small, almost-riskless, profitable deviations from "truthful bidding" are often easy for bidders to find under currently-used payment rules.  Reference Rules...

I describe a new static (sealed-bid) auction for multiple substitute goods.  As in a two-sided simultaneous multiple round auction (SMRA), bidders bid on multiple assets simultaneously, and bid-takers choose supply functions across assets.  The auction yields more efficiency, revenue,...

We compare the most common methods for selling a company or other asset when participation is costly: a simple simultaneous auction, and a sequential process in which potential buyers decide in turn whether or not to enter the bidding.  The sequential process is always more efficient.  But...

We study two platforms competing for members by investing in network quality.  Quality is complementary to the network size: the marginal utility generated by an additional member increases with the network's quality.  Platforms are imperfect substitutes: a share of the potential members are...

This book is a non-technical introduction to auction theory; its practical application in auction design (including many examples); and its uses in other parts of economics. It can be used for a graduate course on auction theory, or – by picking selectively – an advanced...

Part ownership of a takeover target can help a bidder win a takeover auction, often at a low price. A bidder with a toehold bids aggressively in a standard ascending auction because its offers are both bids for the remaining shares and asks for its own holdings. While the direct effect of a...

We usually assume increases in supply, allocation by rationing, and exclusion of potential buyers will never raise prices. But all of these activities raise the expected price in an important set of cases when common-value assets are sold. Furthermore, when we make the assumptions needed to rule...

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We compare the two most common bidding processes for selling a company or other asset when participation is costly to buyers. In an auction all entry decisions are made prior to any bidding. In a sequential bidding earlier entrants can make bids before later entrants choose whether to compete....