In this paper the author reviews the Dutch UMTS-auction that took place in the summer of 2000 and which, in contrast to the UK and German auctions, was generally considered to be a major flop. He analyses the policy process leading to the auctions as well as the bidding behaviour in the auction,...

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure problem that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing.

During the recent sales of UMTS licenses in Europe some countries used auctions while others resorted to so-called Beauty Contests. There seems to be a wide consensus among economists that in these and other contexts like privatisation an auction is the better selling mechanism. However, why...