Biased procurement auctions

In a complex procurement a buyer may consider biasing the auction rules in order to account for differences in product characteristics offered by the sellers. This paper studies the gathering, disclosure and use of information about this bias. While we also describe the optimal procurement auction in our setting, the main focus of the paper is on the case where the buyer does not have commitment power. We find that without commitment full disclosure of the buyer’s preferences is optimal. Furthermore, lack of commitment distorts the buyer’s incentives to learn about its preferences: unlike the commitment case, without commitment the value of this information can be negative. Based on Chapter 3 of my Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford University. I gratefully acknowledge the support of a John M. Olin Dissertation Fellowship and a Melvin and Joan Lane Stanford Graduate Fellowship. Thanks to Pat Bajari, Tim Bresnahan, Vinicius Carrasco, George Deltas, Jonathan Levin, Paul Milgrom, Ilya Segal and an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions.     

政府采购专家资源的整合与管理

现行政府采购制度引进专家评审机制,实现了政府经济支出行为的程序化和规范化。政府采购评审专家代表政府依法行使采购项目评审权利,对政府采购专家资源进行有效整合与管理成为政府采购活动中关键的一环。本文分析了我国政府采购专家资源的现状及存在问题,提出了组建专家库的方法和评审专家在项目前、中、后期的合理应用,并给出专家的考核管理办法。     

Incorporating affirmative action into the welfare state

In this paper, we discuss a novel aspect of affirmative action policy. We examine its redistributive role, asking whether in an egalitarian society, supplementing the tax-transfer system with an affirmative action policy would enhance social welfare. We demonstrate that affirmative action could be a desirable policy tool even if racial discrimination does not exist in the labor market.     

Employment Protection and Product Market Competition

A firm facing employment protection will defend its market position more fiercely than a rival firm operating without such restrictions. However, ex ante such firms may be more reluctant to expand. For the benchmark case of contest competition, the defensive effect dominates. A firm facing employment protection has a stronger average market position.     

Competition in the economic crisis: Analysis of procurement auctions

We study the effects of the recent economic crisis on firms׳ bidding behavior and markups in sealed bid auctions. Using data from Austrian construction procurements, we estimate bidders׳ construction costs within a private value auction model. We find that markups of all bids submitted decrease by 1.5 percentage points in the recent economic crisis, markups of winning bids decrease by 3.3 percentage points. We also find that without the government stimulus package this decrease would have been larger. These two pieces of evidence point to pro-cyclical markups.     

Applying for social programs in India: Roles of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action

India has among the most extensive affirmative action programs in the world. Depending on the State, up to 50% of jobs in the public sector are reserved for members of low castes. However, recruitment is highly discretionary, making it hard for low castes without connections to access reserved jobs and thereby benefit from affirmative action. This paper studies how having a local elected leader from the same caste affects the probability of applying for reserved jobs. The identification strategy focuses on the political reservation system at the village level that determines the caste group of the local elected leader. Taking data from three States in South India, I find that households are more likely to apply when the local elected leader is from their caste group. The evidence suggests that the impact is driven by updated beliefs regarding the probability of a successful application.     

Gender Quotas and Human Capital Formation: A Relative Deprivation Approach

We study a quota's effect on individual human capital investment incentives beyond merely altering individual's overall probability of being promoted. We assume that individuals sense relative deprivation from unfavorable (income) comparisons within their reference group and that comparisons take place within the same gender. The introduction of a female quota increases (decreases) the number of women (men) holding top positions. On one hand, the relative deprivation to which female individuals are subjected to increases. These female individuals respond to an increase in their relative deprivation by acquiring additional human capital which, because it enables them to increase their earnings, reduces their relative deprivation. On the other hand, male individuals invest less in human capital in response to a decrease in relative deprivation. We show that the human capital formed by women who are encouraged to do so by the quotas is larger than the human capital that men who are discouraged by the quotas refrain from forming. However, the positive human capital accumulation effect hinges on a certain level of ability by gender and on how much individuals perceive relative deprivation.     

Gender,Class, and Caste Schisms in Affirmative Action Policies: The Curious Case of India's Women's Reservation Bill

Following the introduction of economic liberalization policies in 1991, India has registered steady gains in terms of conventional economic indices such as external trade, investment inflows, and foreign exchange reserves. However, globalization has also caused the feminization of poverty. To counter this trend of marginalization of women, it is necessary to address the gender imbalance in decision-making positions. A Constitutional Amendment Bill seeking 33 percent reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures has, however, been scuttled by three successive governments since 1996, even while each party swears by its commitment to gender equity. The reasons for this curious schism showcase a classic example of gender-class-caste alignments and divisions, under political compulsions. This paper examines this ongoing gender-caste-class imbroglio, in the context of Indian affirmative action policies (economic, social, political), which have generated "backlash" reactions.     

Survival auctions

Dynamic clock auctions with drop-out information typically yield outcomes closer to equilibrium predictions than do comparable sealed-bid auctions. However, clock auctions require congregating bidders for a fixed time interval, which has limited field applicability and introduces inefficiencies of its own given the time cost of congregating bidders. In this experiment we explore the effects of removing these inefficiencies through survival auctions—a multi-round sealed-bid auction which is theoretically isomorphic to the dynamic clock auction with drop-out information. Kagel’s research was partially supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. 0136925 and 0136928. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We thank the associate editor, an anonymous referee, seminar participants at Purdue University, especially Tim Cason, participants at International Industrial Organization April 2004 Conference, the ESA June 2003 meetings, and our discussant, Tim Salmon, for valuable comments. Kirill Chernomaz provided valuable research assistance. The usual caveat applies.     

Revenues in discrete multi-unit, common value auctions: a study of three sealed-bid mechanisms

This paper proposes a discrete bidding model for both quantities and pricing. It has a two-unit demand environment where subjects bid for contracts with an unknown redemption value, common to all bidders. Prior to bidding, the bidders receive private signals of information on the (common) value. The relevant task is to compare the equilibrium strategies and the seller’s revenue of the three most common auction formats with two players. The result is that the Vickrey auction always gives the most revenue to the seller, the discriminatory auction follows closely and the uniform auction clearly is the worst due to demand reduction.

政府采购的本土创新效应研究

政府采购是创新实践领域的重要工具。分析了我国政府采购制度演化历程,将研发活动分为两个阶段,以2002-2011年我国内地29个省级单位的面板数据为样本,构建计量模型检验了政府采购对我国本土创新的影响。研究结果表明,政府采购有效促进了本土创新过程中的研发设计和产品转化,国内私人需求、国外市场需求和研发投入也有效促进了本土创新;研发人力资本投入对研发设计创新有显著的抑制作用,对产品转化创新有显著的促进作用。最后,根据研究结果,提出了相应的建议。     

An experimental investigation of soft price caps in uniform price auction markets for wholesale electricity

This paper presents the results from an auction experiment using industry professionals and student participants who compete in a simulated wholesale market for electricity. Motivated by the intervention by FERC in response to the “meltdown” of the California spot market, we investigate the effect of including a “soft” price cap in a uniform price auction as a means of mitigating high prices. When prices are driven above the soft cap, offer curves become flat, in contrast to the hockey stick shape observed in a typical uniform price auction for electricity. This flat offer curve leads to market prices that are relatively insensitive to both generation costs and demand reductions.      

Reasons for the low valuation of Russian shares

This note analyses the valuation of Russian assets focusing on the market capitalization of major Russian firms trading in Moscow. It documents that valuations are very low compared to similar assets in mature economies. Several reasons are advanced to explain this phenomenon. The most important of these seems to be the poor record of Russian firms with respect to honouring shareholder rights. Some policy proposals are made to address this problem.     

竞合行为对装备制造业市场拓展的影响

以我国装备制造业20家上市公司的市场经营数据为样本,从市场效率、市场份额、产品差异等角度考察竞合对市场拓展产生的影响。研究发现,竞合行为的模式不同对装备制造业市场拓展产生的影响也不同,竞合行为并不会必然使双方都获得收益。从分析数据看,以关联联盟形式进行的竞合更能导致企业相对市场效率的改变,以规模联盟形式进行的竞合更有利于产品差异化,而在市场进入方面两种形式的竞合没有显著差异。显然,装备制造业如何理性选择竞合行为和实施策略以参与国际竞争成为亟待解决的问题。     

Teachers' Unions and Student Achievement in High School Economics

High school students in unionized schools score higher on the Test of Economic Literacy than students in nonunion districts, ceteris paribus.     

Revenue comparison in common-value auctions: Two examples

When players' affiliated values are symmetrically distributed, expected revenue in the second-price auction equals or exceeds that in the first-price auction (Milgrom and Weber, 1982). We provide two common-value examples where this ranking fails when players are asymmetrically informed.     

公共采购塑造创新的方式、机制及障碍:文献综述与展望

作为创新政策需求方复兴的核心工具之一,公共创新采购（PPI）具有改善公共服务效能和促进技术创新的双重功能。通过梳理国内外文献,从方式、机制及障碍等方面对公共创新采购研究进展进行评述。从原理看,以公共采购者、创新提供者和中介为主要参与者的公共创新采购,其本质是一个由采购过程和创新过程耦合而成的系统且包含3种机制,即交易实现机制、创新生成机制和创新扩散机制;从实践看,框架条件、组织能力、需求识别和传递、风险管理是影响公共创新采购政策效果的主要障碍。最后,总结公共创新采购研究理论框架,提出未来研究方向。     

Supply function equilibria of pay-as-bid auctions

This paper characterizes the Nash equilibrium in a pay-as-bid (discriminatory), divisible-good, procurement auction. Demand by the auctioneer is uncertain as in the supply function equilibrium model. A closed form expression is derived for a one shot game. Existence of an equilibrium is ensured if the hazard rate of the demand distribution is monotonically decreasing with respect to the shock outcome and sellers have non-decreasing marginal costs. Multiple equilibria can be ruled out for markets, for which the auctioneer’s demand exceeds suppliers’ capacity with a positive probability. The derived equilibrium can be used to model strategic bidding behavior in pay-as-bid electricity auctions, such as the balancing mechanism of United Kingdom. Offer curves and mark-ups of the derived equilibrium are compared to results for the SFE of a uniform-price auction.      

Asymptotic behavior of market shares for a stochastic growth model

Consider a market with finitely many firms, each enjoying an uncertain growth. We assume the (random) growth rates of these firms are independent and identically distributed. We show that the asymptotic probability distribution of the market shares gives each firm an equal probability of dominating the market (while all other firms are almost extinguished). In particular, these conclusions are independent of the initial market shares of the firms. We conclude that sample paths fluctuate between almost domination and almost extinction. We also demonstrate that these fluctuations may be very slow. Extensions to situations where the total demand is restricted are discussed.