This paper explores the use of auctions for privatizing public assets. In our model, a single insider bidder (e.g., incumbent management of a government-owned firm) possesses information about the asset's risky value. In addition, bidders are privately informed about their costs of exploiting...

Multi-unit ascending auctions allow for equilibria in which bidders strategically reduce their demand and split the market at low prices. At the same time, they allow for preemptive bidding by incumbent bidders in a coordinated attempt to exclude entrants from the market. We consider an...

This classroom experiment introduces students to the concept of double marginalization, i.e., the exercise of market power at successive vertical layers in a supply chain. By taking on roles of firms, students determine how the mark-ups are set at each successive production stage. They learn...

Environmental markets have several institutional features that provide a new context for the use of auctions and which have not been studied previously. This paper reports on laboratory experiments testing three auction forms: uniform and discriminatory price sealed bid auctions and an ascending...