We scrutinize the scope of auctions in the presence of downstream interactions and information externalities by using the topical example of a firm acquisition. We show that no mechanism exists that allows an investor to acquire a low-cost firm under incomplete information: a separating auction...

This paper empirically investigates the effect of the competitive environment (number of participants) on the cost of procurement. We use a unique dataset provided by the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) of Turkey that covers all of the government procurement auctions for the years...

Using online auction data, we address the endogeneity involved in estimating the eff ect of the number of bidders on the winning bid. We introduce a novel instrumental variable. Our results indicate that the bias arising from treating the number of bidders as exogenous, is substantial

We present an easy-to-implement method to identify the optimal number of bidders in public procurement auctions. We examine a unique data set that covers all government procurement auctions comprising more than half a million observations. We show that there is an optimal number of bidders at...

We scrutinize the scope of auctions in the presence of downstream interactions and information externalities by using the topical example of a firm acquisition. We show that no mechanism exists that allows an investor to acquire a low-cost firm under incomplete information: a separating auction...