We study the competition to acquire the exclusive right to operate an infrastructure service, by comparing two different specifications for the financial proposals - "lowest price to consumers" vs "highest concession fee", and two alternative contractual arrangements: a contract which imposes...

We compare auctioning and grandfathering as allocation mechanisms of emission permits when there is a secondary market with market power and the firms have private information. Based on real-life cases such as the EU ETS, we consider a multi-unit, multi-bid uniform auction, modelled as a...

Contracts providing payments for not developing natural areas, or for removing cropland from production, generally require long-term commitments. Landowners, however, can decide to prematurely terminate the contract when the opportunity cost of complying with conservation requirements increases....

The theoretical literature on collusion in auctions suggests that the first-price mechanism can deter the formation of bidding rings. In equilibrium, collusive negotiations are either successful or are avoided altogether, hence such analysis neglects the effects of failed collusion attempts. In...

Drawing on the real-options theory we analyse bidding behaviour in a sealed-bid-first-score procurement auction where suppliers, facing variable production costs, must simultaneously report the contract price and the cost level at which they intend to perform the project. We show that this award...

Internet auctions, such as those on eBay, are known for multiple bidding and sniping. Buyers send bids in the closing seconds of an auction, knowing that bids arriving after the closure of the auction are not counted. They also bid several times at the same auction. We model Internet auction as...

We study entry and bidding patterns in sealed bid and open auctions with heterogeneous bidders. Using data from U.S. Forest Service timber auctions, we document a set of systematic effects of auction format: sealed bid auctions attract more small bidders, shift the allocation towards these...

We analyze the welfare consequences of an increase in the commissions charged by the organizer of an auction. Commissions are similar to taxes imposed on buyers and sellers and the economic problem that results looks similar to the question of tax incidence in consumer economics. We argue,...

We study the potential benefits of adding a lottery component to cut the main risks associated with standard negotiated and rule-based auction procurement procedures. We show that adopting a two stage approach in which bureaucrats first negotiate with a small number of bidders to assess their...

We provide a model of bookbuilding in IPOs, in which the issuer can choose to ration shares. We consider two allocation rules. Under share dispersion, before informed investors submit their bids, they know that, in the aggregate, winning bidders will receive only a fraction of their demand. We...