We analyze a setting common in privatizations, public tenders, and takeovers in which the ex post efficient allocation, i.e., the first best, is not implementable. Our first main result is that the open ascending auction is not second best because it is prone to rushes, i.e., all active bidders...

We analyze a setting common in privatizations, public tenders, and takeovers in which the ex post efficient allocation, i.e., the first best, is not implementable. Our first main result is that the open ascending auction is not second best because it is prone to rushes, i.e., all active bidders...

We show that jump bids can be used by a bidder to create a winner's curse and preserve an informational advantage that would otherwise disappear in the course of an open ascending auction. The eect of the winner's curse is to create allocative distortions and reduce the seller's expected...

We show that the commitment to not allocate may be exploited by a seller/social planner to increase the expected social surplus that can be achieved in the sale of an indivisible unit.

We show that open ascending auctions are prone to inecient rushes, i.e. all bidders quitting at the same price, in market environments such as privatizations, takeover contests, and procurement auctions. Rushes arise when an incumbent with better information about a common value component of the...

We analyze the rationale for hiding information in open auction formats. In particular, we focus on the incentives for a bidder to call a price higher than the highest standing one in order to prevent the remaining active bidders from aggregating more accurate information that could be gathered...