Common Value Auctions And The Winner S Curse

An invaluable account of how auctions work—and how to make them work Few forms of market exchange intrigue economists as do auctions, whose theoretical and practical implications are enormous. John Kagel and Dan Levin, complementing their own distinguished research with papers written with other specialists, provide a new focus on common value auctions and the "winner's curse." In such auctions the value of each item is about the same to all bidders, but different bidders have different information about the underlying value. Virtually all auctions have a common value element; among the burgeoning modern-day examples are those organized by Internet companies such as eBay. Winners end up cursing when they realize that they won because their estimates were overly optimistic, which led them to bid too much and lose money as a result. The authors first unveil a fresh survey of experimental data on the winner's curse. Melding theory with the econometric analysis of field data, they assess the design of government auctions, such as the spectrum rights (air wave) auctions that continue to be conducted around the world. The remaining chapters gauge the impact on sellers' revenue of the type of auction used and of inside information, show how bidders learn to avoid the winner's curse, and present comparisons of sophisticated bidders with college sophomores, the usual guinea pigs used in laboratory experiments. Appendixes refine theoretical arguments and, in some cases, present entirely new data. This book is an invaluable, impeccably up-to-date resource on how auctions work--and how to make them work.

Melding theory with the econometric analysis of filed data, the authors of this text assess the design of government auctions, such as the spectrum rights (air wave) auctions that continue to be conducted around the world. They then gauge the sellers' revenue of the type of auction used and of inside information, show how bidders learn to avoid the winner's curse, and present comparisions of sophisticated bidders with students, the usual guinea pigs used in laboratory experiments.

An invaluable account of how auctions work—and how to make them work Few forms of market exchange intrigue economists as do auctions, whose theoretical and practical implications are enormous. John Kagel and Dan Levin, complementing their own distinguished research with papers written with other specialists, provide a new focus on common value auctions and the "winner's curse." In such auctions the value of each item is about the same to all bidders, but different bidders have different information about the underlying value. Virtually all auctions have a common value element; among the burgeoning modern-day examples are those organized by Internet companies such as eBay. Winners end up cursing when they realize that they won because their estimates were overly optimistic, which led them to bid too much and lose money as a result. The authors first unveil a fresh survey of experimental data on the winner's curse. Melding theory with the econometric analysis of field data, they assess the design of government auctions, such as the spectrum rights (air wave) auctions that continue to be conducted around the world. The remaining chapters gauge the impact on sellers' revenue of the type of auction used and of inside information, show how bidders learn to avoid the winner's curse, and present comparisons of sophisticated bidders with college sophomores, the usual guinea pigs used in laboratory experiments. Appendixes refine theoretical arguments and, in some cases, present entirely new data. This book is an invaluable, impeccably up-to-date resource on how auctions work--and how to make them work.

Winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Richard Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound even in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate, challenging, and often funny examples of such anomalies as why the winners at auctions are often the real losers—they pay too much and suffer the "winner's curse"—why gamblers bet on long shots at the end of a losing day, why shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another, and why sports fans who wouldn't pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldn't sell one they own for less than $400. He also demonstrates that markets do not always operate with the traplike efficiency we impute to them.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications. It is written by a leading economic theorist whose suggestions guided the creation of the new spectrum auction designs. Aimed at graduate students and professionals in economics, the book gives the most up-to-date treatments of both traditional theories of 'optimal auctions' and newer theories of multi-unit auctions and package auctions, and shows by example how these theories are used. The analysis explores the limitations of prominent older designs, such as the Vickrey auction design, and evaluates the practical responses to those limitations. It explores the tension between the traditional theory of auctions with a fixed set of bidders, in which the seller seeks to squeeze as much revenue as possible from the fixed set, and the theory of auctions with endogenous entry, in which bidder profits must be respected to encourage participation.

This textbook provides a short introduction to auction theory through exercises with detailed answer keys. Focusing on practical examples, this textbook offers over 80 exercises that predict bidders’ equilibrium behaviour in different auction formats, along with the seller’s strategic incentives to organize one auction format over the other. The book emphasizes game-theoretic tools, so students can apply similar tools to other auction formats. Also included are several exercises based on published articles, with the model reduced to its main elements and the question divided into several easy-to-answer parts. Little mathematical background in algebra and calculus is assumed, and most algebraic steps and simplifications are provided, making the text ideal for upper undergraduate and graduate students. The book begins with a discussion of second-price auctions, which can be studied without using calculus, and works through progressively more complicated auction scenarios: first-price auctions, all-pay auctions, third-price auctions, the Revenue Equivalence principle, common-value auctions, multi-unit auctions, and procurement auctions. Exercises in each chapter are ranked according to their difficulty, with a letter (A-C) next to the exercise title, which allows students to pace their studies accordingly. The authors also offer a list of suggested exercises for each chapter, for instructors teaching at varying levels: undergraduate, Masters, Ph.D. Providing a practical, customizable approach to auction theory, this textbook is appropriate for students of economics, finance, and business administration. This book may also be used for related classes such as game theory, market design, economics of information, contract theory, or topics in microeconomics.

Governments use them to sell everything from oilfields to pollution permits, and to privatize companies; consumers rely on them to buy baseball tickets and hotel rooms, and economic theorists employ them to explain booms and busts. Auctions make up many of the world's most important markets; and this book describes how auction theory has also become an invaluable tool for understanding economics. Auctions: Theory and Practice provides a non-technical introduction to auction theory, and emphasises its practical application. Although there are many extremely successful auction markets, there have also been some notable fiascos, and Klemperer provides many examples. He discusses the successes and failures of the one-hundred-billion dollar "third-generation" mobile-phone license auctions; he, jointly with Ken Binmore, designed the first of these. Klemperer also demonstrates the surprising power of auction theory to explain seemingly unconnected issues such as the intensity of different forms of industrial competition, the costs of litigation, and even stock trading 'frenzies' and financial crashes. Engagingly written, the book makes the subject exciting not only to economics students but to anyone interested in auctions and their role in economics.

In many countries all over the world, governments are privatising firms that were previously under public control. This is happening, for example, in public utility sectors such as gas, water and electricity, in transport sectors (such as rail and metro) and in radio and telephony. This book provides an overview of the economic issues that are involved in this transfer of ownership of public assets. Combining a theoretical framework with a set of case studies of recent sales of state-owned assets from Europe and the USA, it asks which sort of allocation mechanism can a government adopt? Which is most suited to a particular sale? And how will the choice of allocation mechanism affect future market outcomes? With contributions from international experts, this book offers an accessible introduction to auction theory and an invaluable, non-technical analysis of existing knowledge. It will be of interest to students, non-specialists and policy-makers alike.