(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
English Auctions with Ensuing Risks and Heterogeneous Bidders
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pen/papers/15-010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

English Auctions with Ensuing Risks and Heterogeneous Bidders

Author

Listed:
  • Audrey Hu

    (University of Amsterdam,Tinbergen Institute)

  • Steven A. Matthews

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

  • Liang Zou

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

We establish conditions under which an English auction for an indivisible risky asset has an efficient ex post equilibrium when the bidders are heterogeneous in both their exposures to, and their attitudes toward, the ensuing risk the asset will generate for the winning bidder. Each bidder's privately known type is unidimensional, but may affect both his risk attitude and the expected value of the asset's return to the winner. An ex post equilibrium in which the winning bidder has the largest willingness to pay for the asset exists if two conditions hold: each bidder's marginal utility of income is log-supermodular, and the vector-valued function mapping the type vector into the bidders' expected values for the asset satisfies a weighted average crossing condition. However, this equilibrium need not be efficient. We show that it is efficient if each bidder's expected value for the asset is nonincreasing in the types of the other bidders, or if the bidders exhibit nonincreasing absolute risk aversion or if the asset is riskless.

Suggested Citation

  • Audrey Hu & Steven A. Matthews & Liang Zou, 2015. "English Auctions with Ensuing Risks and Heterogeneous Bidders," PIER Working Paper Archive 15-010, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
  • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:15-010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/15-010_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Péter Esö & Lucy White, 2004. "Precautionary Bidding in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 77-92, January.
    2. Milgrom, Paul & Stokey, Nancy, 1982. "Information, trade and common knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-27, February.
    3. Ian Jewitt, 1987. "Risk Aversion and the Choice Between Risky Prospects: The Preservation of Comparative Statics Results," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(1), pages 73-85.
    4. Jehiel, Philippe & Moldovanu, Benny, 2001. "Efficient Design with Interdependent Valuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1237-1259, September.
    5. Dubra, Juan & Echenique, Federico & Manelli, Alejandro M., 2009. "English auctions and the Stolper-Samuelson theorem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 825-849, March.
    6. Simon, Leo K & Stinchcombe, Maxwell B, 1989. "Extensive Form Games in Continuous Time: Pure Strategies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 1171-1214, September.
    7. Baisa, Brian, 2017. "Auction design without quasilinear preferences," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    8. Lawrence M. Ausubel, 2004. "An Efficient Ascending-Bid Auction for Multiple Objects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1452-1475, December.
    9. Bulow, Jeremy & Klemperer, Paul, 1994. "Rational Frenzies and Crashes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 1-23, February.
    10. Susan Athey, 2002. "Monotone Comparative Statics under Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 187-223.
    11. Skrzypacz, Andrzej, 2013. "Auctions with contingent payments — An overview," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 666-675.
    12. Birulin, Oleksii & Izmalkov, Sergei, 2011. "On efficiency of the English auction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1398-1417, July.
    13. Krishna, Vijay, 2003. "Asymmetric English auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 261-288, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hu, Audrey & Zou, Liang, 2015. "Sequential auctions, price trends, and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 319-335.
    2. Audrey Hu & Liang Zou, 2016. "Sequential Auctions with Generalized Interdependent Values," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-016/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Baisa, Brian, 2020. "Efficient multi-unit auctions for normal goods," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(1), January.
    4. Vasserman, Shoshana & Watt, Mitchell, 2021. "Risk aversion and auction design: Theoretical and empirical evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hernando-Veciana, Angel & Michelucci, Fabio, 2018. "Inefficient rushes in auctions," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    2. Wang, Dazhong & Xu, Xinyi, 2022. "Optimal equity auction with interdependent valuations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    3. Hernando-Veciana, Ángel & Michelucci, Fabio, 2011. "Second best efficiency and the English auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 496-506.
    4. Jehiel, Philippe & Moldovanu, Benny, 2005. "Allocative and Informational Externalities in Auctions and Related Mechanisms," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 142, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    5. Gärtner, Dennis L. & Schmutzler, Armin, 2009. "Merger negotiations and ex-post regret," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1636-1664, July.
    6. Birulin, Oleksii & Izmalkov, Sergei, 2011. "On efficiency of the English auction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1398-1417, July.
    7. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2016. "Optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 347-371.
    8. Hu, Audrey & Zou, Liang, 2015. "Sequential auctions, price trends, and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 319-335.
    9. Vasserman, Shoshana & Watt, Mitchell, 2021. "Risk aversion and auction design: Theoretical and empirical evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2020. "Improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2020-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Michael Peters & Sergei Severinov, 2008. "An ascending double auction," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(2), pages 281-306, November.
    12. Laurent Lamy, 2009. "Ascending auctions: some impossibility results and their resolutions with final price discounts," PSE Working Papers halshs-00575076, HAL.
    13. Andrés Fioriti & Allan Hernandez-Chanto, 2022. "Leveling the Playing Field for Risk-Averse Agents in Security-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5441-5463, July.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/698 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Paul Klemperer, 2007. "Bidding Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-47.
    16. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Lawrence M. Ausubel, 2006. "An Efficient Dynamic Auction for Heterogeneous Commodities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 602-629, June.
    18. Tomoya Kazumura & Shigehiro Serizawa, 2016. "Efficiency and strategy-proofness in object assignment problems with multi-demand preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(3), pages 633-663, October.
    19. Péter Esö & Lucy White, 2004. "Precautionary Bidding in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 77-92, January.
    20. Arnaud Costinot, 2009. "An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1165-1192, July.
    21. Dubra, Juan & Echenique, Federico & Manelli, Alejandro M., 2009. "English auctions and the Stolper-Samuelson theorem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 825-849, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    English auction; ensuing risk; heterogeneous risk preferences; interdependent values; ex post equilibrium; ex post efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pen:papers:15-010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.