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Bribing in second-price auctions

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  • Rachmilevitch, Shiran

Abstract

An IPV 2-bidder second-price auction is preceded by two rounds of bribing: prior to the auction each bidder can try to bribe his rival to depart from the auction, so that he (the briber) will become the sole participant. Bribes are offered sequentially, according to an exogenously given order. Restricting attention to pure strategies (and imposing a certain refinement), I study the efficient equilibria of this game. In any such equilibrium, whenever the first mover offers a strictly positive bribe, this bribe is given by his surplus: his valuation minus the payoff that he would have received in the dominant-strategy equilibrium of the auction. I derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such an equilibrium. I also extend this equilibrium's construction to a model with general valuations, not necessarily IPV.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2015. "Bribing in second-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 191-205.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:92:y:2015:i:c:p:191-205
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.06.008
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    Cited by:

    1. Jingfeng Lu & Zongwei Lu & Christian Riis, 2021. "Peace through bribing," Papers 2107.11575, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    2. Deng, Shanglyu, 2023. "Speculation in procurement auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    3. Doğan, Serhat & Karagözoğlu, Emin & Keskin, Kerim & Sağlam, Çağrı, 2021. "Bribing in team contests," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-9.
    4. Pacharasut Sujarittanonta & Ajalavat Viriyavipart, 2021. "Deterring collusion with a reserve price: an auction experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 536-557, June.
    5. Troyan, Peter, 2017. "Collusion and signaling in auctions with interdependent values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 319-345.
    6. Lu, Jingfeng & Lu, Zongwei & Riis, Christian, 2021. "Perfect bidder collusion through bribe and request," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1-14.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Second-price auctions; Bribing; Collusion; Signaling;
    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

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