We establish conditions under which an English auction for an indivisible risky asset has an efficient ex post equilibrium when the bidders are heterogeneous in both their exposures to, and their attitudes toward, the ensuing risk the asset will generate for the winning bidder. Each bidder's...

This paper analyzes the effects of buyer and seller risk aversion in first and second-price auctions. The setting is the classic one of symmetric and independent private values, with ex ante homogeneous bidders. However, the seller is able to optimally set the reserve price. In both auctions the...