We experimentally compare first-price auctions and multilateral negotiations after introducing horizontal product differentiation into a standard procurement setting. Both institutions yield identical surplus for the buyer, a difference from prior findings with homogeneous products that results...

This paper compares the equilibrium outcomes from a recently developed model of procurement competition with differentiated products to those from two analytically tractable models that might naturally be considered as suitable proxies. The models differ in what sellers know about the buyer's...