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In the basic auction model, the optimal reserve price may depend on the number of bidders

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  • Menicucci, Domenico

Abstract

A widespread claim in the auction literature about the most well known auction setting with i.i.d. private values is that the optimal reserve price for a second price auction is independent of the number n of bidders. This is indeed the case if the virtual valuation function is increasing, but this result fails to hold if the virtual valuation is non-monotone. In such case the optimal reserve price is weakly increasing in n and, as n tends to infinity, it tends to the highest regular valuation with zero virtual value.

Suggested Citation

  • Menicucci, Domenico, 2021. "In the basic auction model, the optimal reserve price may depend on the number of bidders," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121001885
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105371
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Riley, John G & Samuelson, William F, 1981. "Optimal Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 381-392, June.
    2. Wolfstetter, Elmar, 1996. "Auctions: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 367-420, December.
    3. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1996. "Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1271-1283, September.
    4. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    5. Steven A. Matthews, 1995. "A Technical Primer on Auction Theory I: Independent Private Values," Discussion Papers 1096, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
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    Cited by:

    1. Landi, Massimiliano & Menicucci, Domenico & Sarychev, Andrey, 2023. "Competing auctions with non-identical objects," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    2. Benjamin Balzer & Antonio Rosato, 2022. "Never Say Never: Optimal Exclusion and Reserve Prices with Expectations-Based Loss-Averse Buyers," Papers 2210.10938, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Second price auction; Reserve price; Virtual valuation;
    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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