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Auction Design and Tacit Collusion in FCC Spectrum Auctions

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Author Info
Patrick Bajari
Jungwon Yeo
Abstract

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has used auctions to award spectrum since 1994. During this time period, the FCC has experimented with a variety of auctions rules including click box bidding and anonymous bidding. These rule changes make the actions of bidders less visible during the auction and also limit the set of bids which can be submitted by a bidder during a particular round. Economic theory suggests that tacit collusion may be more difficult as a result. We examine this proposition using data from 4 auctions: the PCS C Block, Auction 35, the Advanced Wireless Service auction and the 700 Mhz auction. We examine the frequency of jump bids, retaliatory bids and straightforward bids across these auctions. While this simple descriptive exercise has a number of limitations, the data suggests that these rule changes did limit firms' ability to tacitly collude.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14441.

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Date of creation: Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14441

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L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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