This paper studies the imposition of position limits on commodity futures from the perspective of curbing excessive speculation and thus manipulation. We present a simple general equilibrium model in a static rational expectations framework and agent heterogeneity to illustrate that excessive...

In an experiment, we studied how small groups tackle a company takeover game, a task where participants deciding in isolation frequently exhibit the winner’s curse. We found that groups of three members, who could exchange opinions and chat, substantially reduced the winner's curse and...

We use a second-price common-value auction, the maximal game, to experimentally study whether the Winner’s Curse (WC) can be explained by models which retain best-response behavior but allow for inconsistent beliefs. In the maximal game, the WC can be rationalized only by a belief that others...

In this article we analyze the treasury securities primary auctions of the Mexican Federal Government, using a structural econometric model of Février, Préget and Visser (2002). This model allows to make revenue comparisons across auction formats. Our analysis shows the revenue superiority of...

We empirically assess the winner’s curse effect in auctions for toll road concessions. First, we investigate the overall winner’s curse effects on bidding behaviour. Second, we account for differing levels of common-value components. Third, we investigate whether the possibility of...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between auctions’ results and the number of bidders for local transportation contracts in London. Using an original database concerning 294 local transportation routes we find that a higher number of bidders is associated with a lower cost of...

The problem of asymmetric information causes a winner’s curse in many environments. Given many unsuccessful attempts to eliminate it, we hypothesize that some people ‘prefer’ the lotteries underlying the winner’s curse. Study 1 shows that after removing the hypothesized cause of error,...

While auctions gain relevance as a trading mechanism, different events show how unskilled many firms and governments are when using them. The objective of this article is to familiarize the reader with the auction theory, either to improve the auction design, if he is the auctioneer, or to...