License Auctions and Market Structure

We analyze the interplay between license auctions and market structure in a model with several incumbents and several potential entrants. The focus is on the competitiveness induced by the number of auctioned licenses. Under plausible conditions, we show that auctioning more licenses need not result in a more competitive final outcome, contrary to what common sense suggests. This is due to the nature of competition among incumbents, which sometimes exhibits free-riding. We illustrate some results with examples drawn from the recent European license-auctions for third generation (3G) mobile telephony.     

Almost Common Value Auctions: An Experiment

In almost common value auctions one bidder has a higher (private) value for the item than the other bidders. Theory predicts that even a small private value advantage can have an explosive effect in English auctions, with advantaged bidders always winning and sharp decreases in revenue. These predictions fail to materialize for experienced bidders who have learned to avoid the worst effects of the winner's curse. Bidding is better characterized as proportional, with advantaged bidders tending to bid as in a pure common value auction after adding their private value advantage to their estimated value of the item.     

Synergies in Wireless Telephony: Evidence from the Broadband PCS Auctions

We examine bid data from the first two broadband PCS spectrum auctions for evidence of value synergies. First, we estimate a benchmark regression for the determinants of final auction prices. Then, we include variables reflecting the extent to which bidders ultimately won or already owned the adjacent wireless properties. Consistent with geographic synergies in an ascending-bid auction, prices were higher when the highest losing bidder had adjacent licenses. The footprints of winning bidders suggest that they were often successful in realizing these synergies.     

Capacity constraints and the winner's curse in multi-unit common value auctions

We explore the role of capacity constraints in establishing efficient pricing in multi-unit common value auctions in a setting relevant to auction-based equity IPOs. The method of inquiry is experimental economics. We find that sufficiently large capacity constraints mitigate the overbidding that plagues single-unit auctions and is one of the most robust laboratory findings. We also uncover a puzzling propensity for most bidders to place a portion of their bids at prices above their signals. This disequilibrium behavior persists with experience and in cases with substantial losses in previous auctions. Our results suggest caution is warranted in promoting auction based IPOs that allow unrestricted access by the non-professional investing public.     

Evidence of liquidity constraints found in theme park ticket auctions

Data from Internet auctions of unused tickets to Walt Disney World are used to establish the presence and financial impact of liquidity constraints for consumers, even when those consumers are confronted with a very short time horizon and a substantial potential monetary saving. Bidding for tickets is found to be consistent with the microeconomic consumer theory of risk and liquidity. The presence of liquidity premiums and premiums paid for variety in entertainment are separately established. The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee for very helpful comments and would like to acknowledge Michael Toma, Andy Weinbach, and conference participants of the Academy of Economics and Finance.     

Experiments Testing Multiobject Allocation Mechanisms

This paper reports the results of over 130 auctions conducted under controlled conditions to examine the robustness of several auction mechanisms to allocate multiple objects. The simultaneous discrete auction process used by the Federal Communications Commission to allocate Personal Communications licenses was contrasted with a sequential auction and a combinatorial auction over a variety of demand conditions. In test environments created to check only the minimum competency of the procedures, the simultaneous discrete auction process produces highly efficient allocations, approaching levels similar to those found with a continuous form of the auction, and it outperforms a sequential auction. However, in environments created to stress test the procedures, a combinatorial auction outperforms the simultaneous discrete auction.     

Characterization of bidding behavior in multi-unit auctions

This paper considers a very general class of single or multi-unit auctions of indivisible objects. The model allows for interdependent values, multidiminensional types and any attitude towards risk. Assuming only optimal behavior, we prove that each bid is chosen in order to equalize the marginal benefit to the marginal cost of bidding. This generalizes many existing results in the literature. We use this characterization to obtain sufficient conditions for truthful bidding, monotonic best reply strategies and identification results for multi-unit auctions.     

Measuring and valuing intangible capital in the wireless communications industry

We investigate the measurement and valuation of intangible capital in the wireless telecommunications industry. Four specific sources of intangible capital are investigated: advertising, research and development (R&D), radio spectrum licenses, and measures of installed customer base. All four sources of intangible capital explain a statistically significant portion of the variation in Tobin’s q, but the variation explained by R&D is subsumed by that explained by licenses. Together, licenses and advertising explain over 60% of the variation in q, and licenses are the much more powerful predictor of the two. The industry average q exceeds ten, and it appears that the failure of financial accounting statements to reasonably value licenses plays a substantial role in causing these extraordinarily high q ratios.     

Determinants of technology licensing: the case of licensors

This paper empirically analyzes the behavior of technology licensors using a large dataset of US‐traded companies. The stock of technological knowledge of the licensor, this company's prior exposure to licensing, the rate of growth of its primary sector, the strength of IPR protection, and the nature of the technology are found to be important determinants of the propensity to sell technology through nonexclusive licenses. Smaller firms in industries with ‘simpler’ technologies tend to sell technology through exclusive licenses more than others. In contrast, larger firms in industries dealing with more ‘complex’ technologies engage relatively more in cross licensing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

我国招标投标行业规范化的探讨

《中华人民共和国招标投标法实施条例》的实施,有力地推动了我国招标投标市场朝着规范化方向发展。文章介绍了我国招标投标实践历程,探讨了《招标投标法》与《政府采购法》的区别,以及《中华人民共和国招标投标法实施条例》中对招标投标行业规范的新规定。     

Auctions with asymmetric common-values: The first-price format

We study the performance of the first-price format in auctions with asymmetric common-values. We show that, contrary to the result for second-price auctions, a small advantage for one player translates only to small changes in bidders’ strategies, and the equilibrium remains close to the first-price equilibrium of the original game. We characterize the equilibrium bidding strategies and their behavior as the degree of asymmetry increases. Finally, we compare the revenues at the optimal auction, the first-price auction and the second-price auction.     

AUCTIONS: AN INTRODUCTION

Abstract. This is a detailed introduction to auction theory. It begins with a simple analysis of standard auctions and then uses a strikingly simple general solution of symmetric private values auctions to prove the payoff equivalence of many auction rules. The basic framework is then modified to admit risk aversion, multi-unit and repeated auctions as well as collusion. Then follows an introduction to optimal auctions, with and without stochastic entry, and to common value auctions and the winner's curse problem. The survey closes with a sample of applications, from the regulation of natural monopolies to price competition in oligopoly and the government securities market.     

最高限价招标与围标的博弈行为分析

如今,围标行为在招投标活动中频频发生,而且有愈演愈烈之势,如何限制围标行为的发生已经纳入招标人制定招标办法时考虑的范畴.最近渐渐兴起的最高限价招标作为限制围标,保障业主和国家的利益的一种招标办法,正在引起许多业主单位和各地政府的关注.本文通过运用博弈理论和经济学的分析工具,探究了最高限价招标对围标的影响机理,从而证明了最高限价招标能够有效地限制围标行为的发生.     

An experimental study of signaling in auctions with a flexible reserve price

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of preemptive jump bidding in English auctions with a flexible reserve price. While one of the possible explanations for jump bidding is based on signaling arguments, the ability of the seller to adjust his decision to accept an offer based on the bidding history makes the existence of a signaling equilibrium questionable. This paper shows that the seller's ability to set the reserve price after observing the opening bid reduces both jump bidding behavior and the use and interpretation of opening bids as a signaling device.     

(No) Foundations of dominant-strategy mechanisms: a comment on Chung and Ely (2007)

This comment revisits Chung and Ely (Rev Econ Stud 74:447–476, 2007) in which robustly optimal auctions where investigated. Chung and Ely used a maxmin approach to define robust optimality. Chung and Ely provided conditions under which dominant strategy auctions are robustly optimal in their sense. This comment proposes a refinement of Chung and Ely’s criterion and shows that, with this refined criterion, dominant strategy auctions are not optimal if there are at least three bidders. According to the refinement the auctioneer should not choose dominated auctions, that is, auctions for which there exist other mechanisms that never generate lower expected revenue, and sometimes higher expected revenue. We construct such a dominating mechanism for dominant strategy auctions. The construction exploits the possibility of side bets when beliefs are not derived from common priors. Chung and Ely (Rev Econ Stud 74:447–476, 2007) admitted such beliefs.     

Multiple and last-minute bidding in competing internet auctions

The present paper proposes a theoretical model of the equilibrium bidding behavior in simultaneous competing private-value Internet auctions such as those on eBay. It shows that last-minute bidding and multiple bidding, two commonly observed bidding strategies, arise in equilibrium. It also suggests that last-minute bidding may lead to inefficient outcomes.     

A final price prediction model for english auctions: a neuro-fuzzy approach

Online auction has now been a popular mechanism in setting prices for internet users. However, auction price prediction, involving the modeling of uncertainty regarding the bidding process, is a challenging task primarily due to the variety of factors changing in auction settings. Even if all the factors were accounted for, there still exist uncertainties in human behavior when bidding in auctions. In this paper, three models, regression, neural networks and neuro-fuzzy, are constructed to predict the final prices of English auctions, using real-world online auction data collected from Yahoo-Kimo Auction. The empirical results show that the neuro fuzzy system can catch the complicated relationship among the variables accurately much better than the others, which is of great help for the buyers to avoid overpricing and for the sellers to facilitate the auction. Besides, the knowledge base obtained from neuro fuzzy provides the elaborative relationship among the variables, which can be further tested for theory building.     

Learning through Simultaneous Play: Evidence from Penny Auctions

This paper contributes to the emerging empirical literature on penny auctions, a particular type of all‐pay auctions. We focus on the potential learning effects that bidders may experience over time but also (and particularly) across auctions as a result of their auction participation. Using detailed bid‐level information, we find that, similarly to earlier literature, bidders suffer from a sunk cost fallacy, whereby their probability of dropping out of an auction is decreasing in the number of bids they have already placed in that auction. Although we do find that learning through repeated participation alleviates the sunk cost fallacy, participation in simultaneous penny auctions emerges as a much more effective learning mechanism, ultimately contributing toward bidders earning higher individual surpluses.     

探讨“案例模拟教学”在《建设工程招投标》课程中的应用

在《建设工程招投标》这门课程中,模拟案例教学法不仅可以形象的向学生们讲述如何在实践中更好的运用所学知识,也可以帮助学生毕业后走进工作岗位提前进入状态。文章从几个方面详细的阐述了《建设工程招投标》这一课程中如何引入案例模拟教学手法,并且提出了作者自己相对独到的意见。     

The effect of bid withdrawal in a multi-object auction

The Federal Communications Commission currently utilizes a simultaneous multi-round ascending bid auction to allocate Personal Communication Services licenses. In the auction, participants are allowed to withdraw standing bids at a penalty. The penalty is equal to the maximum of zero or the difference between the value of the withdrawn bid on a license and the highest bid after the withdrawal on that license. The withdrawal rule is designed to assist bidders wishing to assemble combinations of licenses who find themselves stranded with an assortment of licenses for which their bids sum to more than their value. This paper reports results of experiments that examine the effect of the withdrawal rule in environments in which losses can occur if packages of licenses must be assembled piecemeal. The experiments demonstrate that there is a tradeoff with using the rule: efficiency and revenue increase, but individual losses are larger. Furthermore, the increased efficiency does not outweigh the higher prices paid so that bidder surplus falls in the presence of the withdrawal rule. Received: 10 October 1997 / Accepted: 10 September 1998