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Are there common values in first-price auctions? A tail-index nonparametric test

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  • Hill, Jonathan B.
  • Shneyerov, Artyom

Abstract

We develop a consistent nonparametric test of common values in first-price auctions and apply it to British Columbia Timber Sales data. The test is based on the behavior of the CDF of bids near the reserve price. We show that the curvature of the CDF is drastically different under private values (PV) and common values (CV). We then show that the problem of discriminating between PV and CV is equivalent to estimating the lower tail index of the bid distribution. Our approach admits unobserved auction heterogeneity of an arbitrary form. We develop a Hill (1975)-type tail index estimator and find the presence of common values in BC Timber Sales.

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  • Hill, Jonathan B. & Shneyerov, Artyom, 2013. "Are there common values in first-price auctions? A tail-index nonparametric test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 174(2), pages 144-164.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:174:y:2013:i:2:p:144-164
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconom.2013.02.003
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolau, João & Rodrigues, Paulo M.M. & Stoykov, Marian Z., 2023. "Tail index estimation in the presence of covariates: Stock returns’ tail risk dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2266-2284.
    2. Ma, Jun & Marmer, Vadim & Shneyerov, Artyom, 2019. "Inference for first-price auctions with Guerre, Perrigne, and Vuong’s estimator," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(2), pages 507-538.
    3. Emmanuel Guerre & Yao Luo, 2019. "Nonparametric Identification of First-Price Auction with Unobserved Competition: A Density Discontinuity Framework," Papers 1908.05476, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    First-price auctions; Common values; Private values; Tail index; Timber auctions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

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