We review the issues involved in designing a mechanism for allocating resource rights. We focus on the case of exploration and development rights for oil and gas leases in U.S. federal lands to highlight the tradeoffs at play. The main issues concern the design of the lease contract, the design...

This paper describes an ongoing research project, in which we examine recent trends in bidding for offshore oil and gas leases, and the exploration and development of leases after they are sold. We review empirical findings regarding bidder participation and bidding for the period 1954 through...

We characterize an optimal mechanism for a seller with one unit of a good facing N ≥ 3 buyers and a single competitor who sells another identical unit in a second-price auction. Buyers who do not get the seller's good compete in the competitor's subsequent auction. The mechanism features...