IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pcc/pccumd/98jlefcc.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Efficiency of the FCC Spectrum Auctions

Author

Abstract

From July 1994 to July 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conducted nine spectrum auctions, raising about $20 billion for the U.S. Treasury. The auctions assigned thousands of licenses to hundreds of firms. Were the auctions efficient? Did they award the licenses to the firms best able to turn the spectrum into valuable services for onsumers? There is substantial evidence that the FCC's simultaneous ascending auction worked well. It raised large revenues. It revealed critical information in the process of bidding and gave bidders the flexibility to adjust strategies in response to new information. As a result, similar licenses sold for similar prices, and bidders were able to piece together sensible sets of licenses.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Cramton, 1998. "The Efficiency of the FCC Spectrum Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 98jlefcc, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 27 Jul 1998.
    • Handle: RePEc:pcc:pccumd:98jlefcc
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cramton.umd.edu/papers1995-1999/98jle-efficiency-of-the-fcc-spectrum-auctions.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    2. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan, 1997. "Synergies in Wireless Telephony: Evidence from the Broadband PCS Auctions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 497-527, September.
    3. Peter Cramton, 1997. "The FCC Spectrum Auctions: An Early Assessment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 431-495, September.
    4. Cramton, Peter C, 1995. "Money Out of Thin Air: The Nationwide Narrowband PCS Auction," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 267-343, Summer.
    5. Ballard, Charles L & Shoven, John B & Whalley, John, 1985. "General Equilibrium Computations of the Marginal Welfare Costs of Taxes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 128-138, March.
    6. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 1998. "Multi-unit auctions with uniform prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(2), pages 227-258.
    7. Ian Ayres & Peter Cramton, 1996. "Deficit Reduction Through Diversity: How Affirmative Action at the FCC Increased Auction Competition," Papers of Peter Cramton 96slr, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 09 Jun 1998.
    8. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    9. Moreton, Patrick S & Spiller, Pablo T, 1998. "What's in the Air: Interlicense Synergies in the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Personal Communication Service Spectrum Auctions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 677-716, 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. Griffin, Robert, 2013. "Auction designs for allocating wind energy leases on the U.S. outer continentalshelf," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 603-611.
    2. Raphaële Préget, 2004. "Adjudications des valeurs du Trésor," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 63-110.
    3. Lawrence J. White, 2006. "Focusing More on Outputs and on Markets: What Financial Regulation Can Learn from Progress in Other Policy Areas," NFI Policy Briefs 2006-PB-18, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    4. Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal, 2006. "Going, Going, Gone! A Swift Tour of Auction Theory and its Applications," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 197-249, June.
    5. Englmaier, Florian & Guillén, Pablo & Llorente, Loreto & Onderstal, Sander & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2009. "The chopstick auction: A study of the exposure problem in multi-unit auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 286-291, March.
    6. SaÄŸlam, YiÄŸit & Ho, Phuong & Daglish, Toby, 2012. "Auctioning the Digital Dividend: a Model for Spectrum," Working Paper Series 4129, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    7. Guala, Francesco, 2006. "Getting the FCC auctions straight: A reply to Nik-Khah," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 7(3), pages 23-28.
    8. Andrés Pereyra, 2001. "Subasta de telefonía móvil: ¿una experiencia inconclusa en Uruguay?," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0302, Department of Economics - dECON.
    9. W. Tom Whalen & Dennis W. Carlton & Ken Heyer & Oliver Richard, 2007. "Proposal For A Market-Based Solution to Airport Delays," EAG Competition Advocacy Papers 200714, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    10. Longstaff, Francis A & Han, Bing & Merrill, Craig, 2004. "Revenue Implications of Multi-Item Multi-Unit Auction Designs: Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Buyback Auctions," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt7344v866, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    11. Lawrence J. White, 2006. "The Fishery as a Watery Commons: Lessons from the Experiences of Other Public Policy Areas for US Fisheries Policy," Working Papers 06-18, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    12. Tomomi Tanaka, 2005. "Resource allocation with spatial externalities: Experiments on land consolidation," Experimental 0511004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Peter Cramton, 2002. "Spectrum Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 01hte, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 16 Jul 2001.
    14. Coenen, Heide & Holler, Manfred J. & Niskanen, Esko, 2000. "5th Helsinki Workshop on Standardization and Networks, 13-14 August, 2000," Discussion Papers 243, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Daglish, Toby & Sağlam, Yiğit & Ho, Phuong, 2017. "Auctioning the Digital Dividend: A model for spectrum auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 63-98.
    16. Sağlam, Yiğit & Ho, Phuong & Daglish, Toby, 2012. "Auctioning the Digital Dividend: a Model for Spectrum," Working Paper Series 19238, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    17. John Hoven, 2007. "Anticompetitive Restraints on Public Charter Schools," EAG Competition Advocacy Papers 200711, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    18. Lawrence White, 2000. ""Propertyzing" the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Why It's Important, and How to Begin," Working Papers 00-08, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    19. Saurabh Amin & Patrick Jaillet & Haripriya Pulyassary & Manxi Wu, 2023. "Market Design for Dynamic Pricing and Pooling in Capacitated Networks," Papers 2307.03994, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    20. Tim Roughgarden & Inbal Talgam-Cohen, 2018. "Approximately Optimal Mechanism Design," Papers 1812.11896, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    21. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19238 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Peter Cramton, 2002. "Spectrum Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 01hte, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 16 Jul 2001.
    2. Peter Cramton, 1997. "The FCC Spectrum Auctions: An Early Assessment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 431-495, September.
    3. Peter Cramton, 2004. "Simultaneous Ascending Auction," Papers of Peter Cramton 04mit4, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2004.
    4. Cramton, Peter, 1998. "Ascending auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 745-756, May.
    5. Oktay Günlük & Lászlo Ladányi & Sven de Vries, 2005. "A Branch-and-Price Algorithm and New Test Problems for Spectrum Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 391-406, March.
    6. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    7. Cramton, Peter & Schwartz, Jesse A, 2000. "Collusive Bidding: Lessons from the FCC Spectrum Auctions," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 229-252, May.
    8. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 2005. "Low-Revenue Equilibria in Simultaneous Ascending-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 508-518, March.
    9. Paul Milgrom, 2000. "Putting Auction Theory to Work: The Simultaneous Ascending Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 245-272, April.
    10. Cramton Peter & Schwartz Jesse A, 2002. "Collusive Bidding in the FCC Spectrum Auctions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-20, December.
    11. Peter Cramton, 2013. "Spectrum Auction Design," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(2), pages 161-190, March.
    12. Betz, Regina & Seifert, Stefan & Cramton, Peter & Kerr, Suzi, 2010. "Auctioning greenhouse gas emissions permits in Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(2), pages 1-20.
    13. Paul Klemperer, 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 169-189, Winter.
    14. Peter Cramton & John McMillan & Paul Milgrom & Bradley Miller & Bridger Mitchell & Daniel Vincent & Robert Wilson, 1997. "Package Bidding for Spectrum Licenses," Papers of Peter Cramton 97cra1b, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton.
    15. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2020. "Improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2020-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    16. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Brett E Katzman, 2009. "Asymptotic properties of equilibrium in discriminatory and uniform price ipv multi-unit auctions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(2), pages 834-846.
    18. Tilman Börgers & Christian Dustmann, 2005. "Strange Bids: Bidding Behaviour in the United Kingdom's Third Generation Spectrum Auction," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 551-578, July.
    19. Ausubel Lawrence M & Milgrom Paul R, 2002. "Ascending Auctions with Package Bidding," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-44, August.
    20. Hausch, Donald B. & Ramachandran, S., 1999. "Bankruptcy reorganization through markets : Auction-based Creditor Ordering by Reducing Debts (ACCORD)," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2230, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auctions; Multiple-Item Auctions; Spectrum Auctions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications

    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:pcc:pccumd:98jlefcc. 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: Peter Cramton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cramton.umd.edu .

    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.