This study compares the procurement cost-minimizing and productive efficiency performance of the auction mechanism used by independent system operators (ISOs) in wholesale electricity auction markets in the U.S. with that of a proposed alternative. The current practice allocates energy contracts...

In many auction settings, there is favoritism: the seller's welfare depends positively on the utility of a subset of potential bidders. However, laws or regulations may not allow the seller to discriminate among bidders. We find the optimal nondiscriminatory auction in a private value,...

We apply an indirect evolutionary approach to players’ perceived prize valuations in contests. Evolution in finite populations leads to preferences that overstate the prize’s material value and induce overexpenditure. We establish an equivalence between evolutionarily stable strategies and...

We apply an indirect evolutionary approach to players' perceived prize valuations in contests. Evolution in finite populations leads to preferences that overstate the prize's material value and induce overexpenditure. We establish an equivalence between the behavior evolutionarily stable...

In this paper, we analyse a multistage game of competition among auctioneers. In a first stage, auctioneers commit to some publicly announced reserve prices, and in a second stage, bidders choose to participate in one of the auctions. We prove existence of Nash equilibria in mixed strategies for...

This paper provides some striking results that arise in the unique symmetric equilibrium of common value multiunit auctions in which some bidders are better informed than others. We show that bidders with worse information can do surprisingly well: They can win with higher probability than...

We extend Myerson's (1981) model by allowing for uncertainty about the number of bidders. In such extension the Revenue Equivalence Theorem still holds and the optimal allocation rule remains the same. Hence, the optimal auction can be implemented with an appropriate reserve price. Nonetheless,...

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...