A Study of Collusion in First-Price Auctions

This paper examines the bidding for school milk contracts in Florida and Texas during the 1980s. In both states firms were convicted of bid-rigging. The data and legal evidence suggest that the cartels in the two states allocate contracts in different ways: One cartel divides the market among members, while the other cartel also uses side payments to compensate members for refraining from bidding. We show that both forms of cartel agreements are almost optimal, provided the number of contracts is sufficiently large.
In the auction the cartel bidder may face competition from non-cartel bidders. The presence of an optimal cartel induces an asymmetry in the auction. The selected cartel bidder is bidding as a representative of a group and has on average a lower cost than a non-cartel bidder. The data support the predicted equilibrium bidding behaviour in asymmetric auctions in accordance with optimal cartels.     

Empirical Implications of Equilibrium Bidding in First-Price, Symmetric, Common Value Auctions

This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1954 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative, signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop tests of rational and equilibrium bidding in a common values model that are implemented using data on bids and ex post values. We also use data on tract location and ex post values to test the comparative static prediction that bidders may bid less aggressively in common value auctions when they expect more competition. We find that bidders are aware of the "winner's curse" and their bidding is largely consistent with equilibrium.     

Entry and Competition Effects in First-Price Auctions: Theory and Evidence from Procurement Auctions

Motivated by several interesting features of the highway mowing auction data from the Texas Department of Transportation (TDoT), we study three competing procurement auction models with endogenous entry. Our entry and bidding models provide several interesting implications. For the first time, we show that even within an independent private value paradigm, as the number of potential bidders increases, bidders' equilibrium bidding behaviour can become less aggressive, and the expected procurement cost may rise because the "entry effect" is always positive and may dominate the negative "competition effect". We then develop structural models of entry and bidding corresponding to the three models under consideration, controlling for unobserved auction heterogeneity, and use the recently developed semi-parametric Bayesian estimation method to analyse the data. We select the model that best fits the data, and use the corresponding structural estimates to quantify the "entry effect" and the "competition effect" with regard to the individual bids and the procurement cost.     

Strategic Jump Bidding in English Auctions

This paper solves for equilibria of sequential bid (or English) auctions with affiliated values when jump bidding strategies may be employed to intimidate one's opponents. In these equilibria, jump bids serve as correlating devices which select asymmetric bidding functions to be played subsequently. Each possibility of jump bidding provides a Pareto improvement for the bidders from the symmetric equilibrium of a sealed bid, second-price auction. The expanded set of equilibria can approximate either first- or second-price outcomes and produce exactly the set of expected prices between those two bounds. These results contrast with standard conclusions that equate English and second-price auctions.     

网上拍卖雇佣出价行为的研究

雇佣出价是卖方雇佣出价人(或卖方)扮作买方故意人为地抬高被拍卖物品的竞价.雇佣出价通常发生在拍卖价值较高的物品且竞买人对这些物品估价差异较大的情况下,这样卖方就能从欺诈中获得较高的收益.为了预防和检查雇佣出价行为,本文给出了一个使得雇佣出价无利可图的拍卖机制.这一机制强调拍卖人的作用,拍卖人根据中标价和卖方保留价之差收取佣金,佣金率在不同的拍卖市场是不同的,确保雇佣出价无利可图.     

投标与拍卖的决策理论方法

本文介绍国内很少涉及的国际投标和拍卖中的一些重要概念和基本问题,重点综述国际投标与拍卖的决策理论模型与方法的发展历史与现状。     

Bidding and Information: Evidence from Gilt-edged Auctions

Many studies have shown that government debt auctions underprice debt compared with the secondary market. This paper corroborates this for certain forms of gilt auction by comparing the price received at auction with an almost identical parent stock in the secondary market. Although the sample is small, the parent/auction stock price comparison gives a cleaner measure than used in other studies. The paper also compares non-fungible auctions (where the auction stock differs slightly from the parent at auction and merges subsequently) with fully-fungible ones (where they are identical throughout). Significant underpricing only occurs in non-fungible auctions.     

Single Object Auctions With Externalities: A Tractable Model

We consider the single object auction model with allocative externalities in a private valuation and quasi‐linear setting. We model externalities by assuming that every agent has a private valuation (for the object) and a strict ranking of other agents. The utility for an agent when another agent receives the object is the product of his own valuation and a real number that depends on the rank of this agent in his ranking. When the only private information is the valuation of the agents, we characterise the implementable allocation rules and use these to derive the optimal auction. The optimal auction collects payments from agents who do not receive the object.     

Designing Multi-unit Multiple Bid Auctions: An Agent-based Computational Model of Uniform, Discriminatory and Generalised Vickrey Auctions

Multi-unit auctions are being used by public agencies to allocate resources and to purchase services. These auctions resolve the lumpy bid problem inherent in single-bid auctions by allowing bidders to submit a supply or demand schedule. However, the choice of pricing formats for multi-unit auctions is controversial. Neither economic theory nor laboratory experiments depict a complete picture of how alternative pricing formats perform in terms of budgetary or allocative efficiency. This paper constructs an agent-based computational model to compare uniform, discriminatory and generalised Vickrey pricing formats under different degrees of competition and heterogeneity in the bidder population.     

人民币汇率决定的简单模型及实证分析

在回顾了人民币汇率形成机制的演变历史之后,通过借鉴西方经济理论中的汇率决定模型,建立了在当前我国经济处于转型阶段的条件下,人民币汇率决定的简单模型。然后,通过实证分析,得出了影响人民币汇率的主要因素是进出口贸易、利率平价以及国外资本流入,并提出了相关的政策建议。     

A Very Simple Model for Declining Mean Fitness

We describe a large-population one-locus, two-allele model that, for certain values of viability and fertility selection parameters, displays a substantial monotonic decline in population mean fitness, concurrent with complete replacement of the allele associated with higher fitness by the allele associated with lower fitness.     

Growth Volatility and Technical Progress: A Simple Rent-seeking Model

Recent empirical evidence demonstrates that a higher level of technical progress is associated with a lower level of growth volatility and higher expected economic growth. This paper builds a simple growth model which combines the insights of Angeletos and Kollintzas (2000) and Tse (2000; 2001; 2002) with endogenous productivity growth and rent-seeking behavior to account for these stylized facts. Our model complements the literature that focuses on the heterogeneity of different agents.     

A Simple Model of Hysteresis in Employment under Exchange Rate Uncertainty

A model leading to employment hysteresis due to sunk hiring- and firing-costs is proposed. A potential mechanism based on a band of inaction that could account for a 'weaker' relationship between employment and its determinants is augmented by exchange rate uncertainty. As a result of option value effects the band of inaction is widened. Thus, the hysteresis effects are strongly amplified by exchange rate uncertainty (as numerical examples demonstrate). Non-linearities in the employment-relation are implied, i.e. 'spurts' in new employment or firing may occur after an initially weak response to a reversal of the exchange rate.     

国有工业企业简单控制型的劳动关系分析

本文以四家国有工业企业为研究样本,分析了转制后国有工业企业存在的简单控制型劳动关系。这种劳动关系表现为企业目标已经转变为绩效目标,国有企业劳动关系主体等级化,经营管理者与国家保持着紧密的联系,得到其政治与经济的双重庇护,并具有绝对支配权;技术人员有明确的市场优势,却是个体化和碎片化的;技术工人虽享有传统国有企业的保护,但却呈现老龄化趋势,后继乏人;而大量低价非正规劳动力的使用使等级化的用工模式达到极端。简单控制型的劳动关系与非正规劳动力市场有着重要的依存关系,它有效地瓦解了工会的作用,并使固定工以及劳务工们在市场中碎片化。     

A Simple Model of an International Lender of Last Resort

This paper develops a simple model of an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). The world economy consists of many open economies, each with its own banking system and its own central bank which uses its reserves to manage a pegged exchange rate. The fragility of the banking system and the limited ability of a domestic central bank to provide international liquidity together can cause currency and banking crises. An international interbank market can help an economy with the needed international liquidity, but this risk-sharing also comes with potential costs of international financial contagion. Such contagious risk is much higher when there is an international interbank market than otherwise. An ILOLR can play a useful role in providing international liquidity and reducing international contagion.     

A Simple Model of Entrepreneurship for Principles of Economics Courses

The critical roles of entrepreneurs in creating, operating, and destroying markets, as well as their importance in driving long-term economic growth are still generally either absent from principles of economics texts or relegated to later chapters. The primary difficulties in explaining entrepreneurship at the principles level are the lack of a universally accepted definition, a plausible explanation of the demand for entrepreneurship, and a diagram that summarizes the impact of entrepreneurship on market equilibrium and growth—a definition, a story, and a picture. This article discusses how the notion of the stationary state associated with Schumpeter (1911 Schumpeter, J. A. 1911/1983. Theory of economic development., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]/1983), Knight (1921 Knight, F. H. 1921/1971. Risk, uncertainty and profit, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]/1971), and Weber (1930 Weber, M. 1930/2002. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, New York: Scribner's.  [Google Scholar]/2002) can provide a framework for integrating the entrepreneur into the early part of principles of economics courses.     

A Simple Model of Privately Profitable But Socially Useless Speculation

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a pure exchange economy with stochastic endowments, in which speculation in the forward market is profitable and stabilizes prices but is useless from a welfare point of view. Reconciling the Siegel paradox with the theory of incomplete markets, we show that banning speculation by closing the forward market may increase social welfare. We also show that the addition of a market might reduce the gains from international trade for all participating countries.
JEL Classification Numbers: F10, F11, F19.     

财政规模决定:一个经验模型

在借鉴国外财政规模实证分析建模方法的基础上,我们重新澄清了研究中国财政规模决定的逻辑起点和理论建模方向.我们认为,工业化、城市化、人口结构等市场内生变量不能较好地解释20世纪70年代末以来我国财政规模的演变,相反,揭示我国经济社会转型的外生制度变量--经济分权和财政分权,连同显示市场交易总规模的国民收入变量,能够较好地解释这种变化.理论上,作者所构建的简单计量模型分离出了市场与政府之间的替代效应和互补效应,前者反映了市场边界与政府边界的重新渐进界定,后者反映了财政学中广为人知的"瓦格纳定律".诚然,沿着这一基本思路还有大量的工作要做.     

川中丘陵区农村生活污水的一种简易处理模式

生态环境比较脆弱的川中丘陵区农村生活污水产生量与日俱增,污染不断加重。在川中丘陵区选择较为典型的生活污水处理模式进行综合分析,认为该模式具有资源利用与污水处理的双重作用,工程成本低、效果好;但有季节性、食品安全性等局限,最后提出了应当研究的新方向。旨在希望人们对川中丘陵区的农村生活污水更多的关注,让更多的力量加入到农村生活污水的治理当中来。