IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v152y2014icp1-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the analysis of asymmetric first price auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Mares, Vlad
  • Swinkels, Jeroen M.

Abstract

We provide new tools for studying asymmetric first price auctions, connecting their equilibria to the ρ-concavity of the underlying type distributions, and showing how one can use surplus expressions for symmetric auctions to bound equilibrium behavior in asymmetric auctions. We apply these tools to studying procurement auctions in which, as is common in practice, one seller is given an advantage, reflecting for example better reliability or quality. We show conditions under which for any given first price handicap auction, there exists a superior second price auction with bonuses.

Suggested Citation

  • Mares, Vlad & Swinkels, Jeroen M., 2014. "On the analysis of asymmetric first price auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 1-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:152:y:2014:i:c:p:1-40
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2014.03.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053114000507
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2014.03.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lebrun, Bernard, 2006. "Uniqueness of the equilibrium in first-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 131-151, April.
    2. Marshall Robert C. & Meurer Michael J. & Richard Jean-Francois & Stromquist Walter, 1994. "Numerical Analysis of Asymmetric First Price Auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 193-220, September.
    3. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, April.
    4. Bernard Lebrun, 1996. "Existence of an equilibrium in first price auctions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(3), pages 421-443.
    5. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Equilibrium in Sealed High Bid Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 439-454.
    6. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    7. Andrew Schotter & Keith Weigelt, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 511-539.
    8. Maskin, Eric & Riley, John, 2003. "Uniqueness of equilibrium in sealed high-bid auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 395-409, November.
    9. Anderson, Simon P. & Renault, Regis, 2003. "Efficiency and surplus bounds in Cournot competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 253-264, December.
    10. Yeon-Koo Che, 1993. "Design Competition through Multidimensional Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(4), pages 668-680, Winter.
    11. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Asymmetric Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 413-438.
    12. Bulow, Jeremy & Roberts, John, 1989. "The Simple Economics of Optimal Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1060-1090, October.
    13. Matthew O. Jackson & Jeroen M. Swinkels, 2005. "Existence of Equilibrium in Single and Double Private Value Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 93-139, January.
    14. Fernando Branco, 1997. "The Design of Multidimensional Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(1), pages 63-81, Spring.
    15. Ed Hopkins, 2007. "Rank-Based Methods for the Analysis of Auctions," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 173, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    16. Florence Naegelen, 2002. "original papers : Implementing optimal procurement auctions with exogenous quality," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 7(2), pages 135-153.
    17. V. Flambard & I. Perrigne, 2006. "Asymmetry in procurement auctions: some evidence from snow removal contracts," Post-Print hal-00323914, HAL.
    18. Riley, John G & Samuelson, William F, 1981. "Optimal Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 381-392, June.
    19. Lebrun, Bernard, 1999. "First Price Auctions in the Asymmetric N Bidder Case," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(1), pages 125-142, February.
    20. Cabral, Luis M B & Greenstein, Shane, 1990. "Switching Costs and Bidding Parity in Government Procurement of Computer Systems," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 453-469, Fall.
    21. John Asker & Estelle Cantillon, 2008. "Properties of scoring auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(1), pages 69-85, March.
    22. Véronique Flambard & Isabelle Perrigne, 2006. "Asymmetry in Procurement Auctions: Evidence from Snow Removal Contracts," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 1014-1036, October.
    23. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Social Choice: A Mean Voter Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23, January.
    24. Krishna, Vijay, 2009. "Auction Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 2, number 9780123745071.
    25. Ganuza, Juan-Jose & Pechlivanos, Lambros, 2000. "Heterogeneity-promoting optimal procurement," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 105-112, April.
    26. Leandro Arozamena & Estelle Cantillon, 2004. "Investment Incentives in Procurement Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 1-18.
    27. Jason Shachat & J. Todd Swarthout, 2010. "Procurement Auctions for Differentiated Goods," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 6-22, March.
    28. Lebrun, Bernard, 1998. "Comparative Statics in First Price Auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 97-110, October.
    29. Philip J. Reny & Shmuel Zamir, 2004. "On the Existence of Pure Strategy Monotone Equilibria in Asymmetric First-Price Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1105-1125, July.
    30. Andrew Schotter & Allan Corns, 1999. "Can Affirmative Action Be Cost Effective? An Experimental Examination of Price-Preference Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 291-305, March.
    31. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    32. Kirkegaard, René, 2012. "Favoritism in asymmetric contests: Head starts and handicaps," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 226-248.
    33. Ed Hopkins & Tatiana Kornienko, 2007. "Cross and Double Cross: Comparative Statics in First Price Auctions," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000831, UCLA Department of Economics.
    34. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    35. Mares, Vlad & Swinkels, Jeroen M., 2011. "Near-optimality of second price mechanisms in a class of asymmetric auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 218-241, May.
    36. Juan-JosÈ Ganuza & JosÈ S. Penalva, 2010. "Signal Orderings Based on Dispersion and the Supply of Private Information in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1007-1030, May.
    37. Maskin, Eric S & Riley, John G, 1984. "Optimal Auctions with Risk Averse Buyers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1473-1518, November.
    38. Kirkegaard, René, 2009. "Asymmetric first price auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1617-1635, July.
    39. René Kirkegaard, 2012. "A Mechanism Design Approach to Ranking Asymmetric Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(5), pages 2349-2364, September.
    40. Hopkins Ed & Kornienko Tatiana, 2007. "Cross and Double Cross: Comparative Statics in First Price and All Pay Auctions," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, May.
    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. Zenan Wu & Xi Weng, 2018. "Managerial turnover and entrenchment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 742-771, October.
    2. Schweizer, Nikolaus & Szech, Nora, 2017. "Revenues and welfare in auctions with information release," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 86-111.
    3. De Chiara, Alessandro, 2015. "Holding an Auction for the Wrong Project," MPRA Paper 72108, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 21 Apr 2015.
    4. Chaturvedi, Aadhaar, 2015. "Procurement auctions with capacity constrained suppliers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 247(3), pages 987-995.
    5. Damian R. Beil & Qi (George) Chen & Izak Duenyas & Brendan D. See, 2018. "When to Deploy Test Auctions in Sourcing," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 232-248, May.

    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. Kirkegaard, René, 2009. "Asymmetric first price auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1617-1635, July.
    2. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    3. Mares, Vlad & Swinkels, Jeroen M., 2011. "Near-optimality of second price mechanisms in a class of asymmetric auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 218-241, May.
    4. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    5. Kirkegaard, René, 2014. "Ranking asymmetric auctions: Filling the gap between a distributional shift and stretch," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 60-69.
    6. 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.
    7. Cantillon, Estelle, 2008. "The effect of bidders' asymmetries on expected revenue in auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 1-25, January.
    8. Timothy P. Hubbard & Rene Kirkegaard, 2015. "Asymmetric Auctions with More Than Two Bidders," Working Papers 1502, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    9. Hubbard, Timothy P. & Paarsch, Harry J., 2009. "Investigating bid preferences at low-price, sealed-bid auctions with endogenous participation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-14, January.
    10. Kotowski, Maciej H., 2018. "On asymmetric reserve prices," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    11. Vlad Mares & Jeroen Swinkels, 2014. "Comparing first and second price auctions with asymmetric bidders," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(3), pages 487-514, August.
    12. Li, Huagang & Riley, John G., 2007. "Auction choice," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1269-1298, December.
    13. Timothy P. Hubbard & Harry J. Paarsch, 2012. "On the Numerical Solution of Equilibria in Auction Models with Asymmetries within the Private-Values Paradigm," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 291, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    14. Leandro Arozamena & Estelle Cantillon, 2004. "Investment Incentives in Procurement Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 1-18.
    15. Rene Kirkegaard, 2005. "A Simple Approach to Analyzing Asymmetric First Price Auctions," Working Papers 0504, Brock University, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2005.
    16. Sanyyam Khurana, 2020. "Asymmetric auctions with risk averse preferences," Working papers 304, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    17. Takahashi, Hidenori, 2015. "Strategic design under uncertain evaluations : structural analysis of design-build auctions," Working Papers 15-08, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    18. Arieh Gavious & Yizhaq Minchuk, 2014. "Ranking asymmetric auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(2), pages 369-393, May.
    19. Lebrun, Bernard, 2006. "Uniqueness of the equilibrium in first-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 131-151, April.
    20. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19224 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Fibich, Gadi & Gavious, Arieh & Sela, Aner, 2004. "Revenue equivalence in asymmetric auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 309-321, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric auctions; Request for proposal; Differentiation; Mechanism design; First price auctions; Second price auctions; Procurement; Rho-concavity;
    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

    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:eee:jetheo:v:152:y:2014:i:c:p:1-40. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    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.