A firm can merge with one of n potential partners. The owner of each firm has private information about both his firm's stand-alone value and a component of the synergies that would be realized by the merger involving his firm. We characterize incentive-efficient mechanisms in two cases. First,...

We analyze the doping behavior of heterogeneous athletes in an environment of private information. In a n-player strategic game, modeled as an all-pay auction, each athlete has private information about his actual physical ability and choses the amount of performance-enhancing drugs. The use of...

Potential bidders respond to a seller's choice of auction mechanism for a common-value or affiliated-values asset by endogenous decisions whether to incur an information-acquisition cost (and observe a private estimate), or forgo competing. Privately informed participants decide whether to incur...

This paper analyzes the trade of an indivisible good within a two-stage mechanism, where a seller first negotiates with one potential buyer about the price of the good. If the negotiation fails to produce a sale, a second 'price sealed' bid auction with an additional buyer is conducted. The...

In this paper we use an experiment to compare a theory of risk aversion and a theory of spite as an explanation for overbidding in auctions. As a workhorse we use the second-price all-pay and the first-price winner-pay auction. Both risk and spite can be used to rationalize deviations from risk...

We investigate experimentally on eBay how sellers set prices in "Buy-It-Now" (BIN) auctions. We find that the eBay format leads to prices substantially below those expected in second-price auctions. Moreover, our results reveal that the information available on eBay about buyer experience and...

In Buy-It-Now (BIN, hereafter) auctions, sellers can make a \"take-it-or-leave-it\" price offer (BIN price) prior to an auction. We analyse experimentally how eBay sellers set BIN prices and whether they benefit from offering them. Using the real eBay environment in the laboratory, we find that...

We use experiments to compare dynamic and static wars of attrition (i.e. second-price all-pay auctions) and first-price all-pay auctions. Many other studies find overbidding in first-price all-pay auctions. We can replicate this property. In wars of attrition, however, we find systematic...

We study an in.nitely-repeated .rst-price auction with common values. Initially, bid-ders receive independent private signals about the objects. value, which itself does not change over time. Learning occurs only through observation of the bids. Under one-sided incomplete information, this...

We use laboratory experiments to compare allocation rules in uniform price divisible good auctions. 'Standard' and 'uniform' allocation rules admit different types of low-price equilibria, which are eliminated by a 'hybrid' rule. We observe little evidence of revenue differences among the...