IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v212y2023ics0022053123000881.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Speculation in procurement auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Deng, Shanglyu

Abstract

A speculator can take advantage of a procurement auction by acquiring items for sale before the auction. The accumulated market power can then be exercised in the auction and may lead to a large enough gain to cover the acquisition costs. I show that speculation always generates a positive expected profit in second-price auctions but could be unprofitable in first-price auctions. In the case where speculation is profitable in first-price auctions, it is more profitable in second-price auctions. This comparison in profitability is driven by different competition patterns in the two auction mechanisms: in first-price auctions, sellers who refuse to sell to the speculator bid more aggressively than in second-price auctions. In terms of welfare, speculation causes private value destruction and harms efficiency. Sellers benefit from the acquisition offer made by the speculator. Therefore, speculation comes at the expense of the auctioneer.

Suggested Citation

  • Deng, Shanglyu, 2023. "Speculation in procurement auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:212:y:2023:i:c:s0022053123000881
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2023.105692
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053123000881
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2023.105692?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rod Garratt & Thomas Tröger, 2006. "Speculation in Standard Auctions with Resale," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 753-769, May.
    2. Eso, Peter & Schummer, James, 2004. "Bribing and signaling in second price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 299-324, May.
    3. Saral, Krista Jabs, 2012. "Speculation and demand reduction in English clock auctions with resale," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 416-431.
    4. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1992. "Bidding Rings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 579-599, June.
      • McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John., 1990. "Bidding Rings," Working Papers 726, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    5. Georganas, Sotiris, 2011. "English auctions with resale: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 147-166, September.
    6. Marco Pagnozzi & Krista J. Saral, 2019. "Entry by successful speculators in auctions with resale," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 477-505, June.
    7. Garratt, Rodney & Georganas, Sotiris, 2021. "Auctions with speculators: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 256-270.
    8. Haile, Philip A., 2000. "Partial Pooling at the Reserve Price in Auctions with Resale Opportunities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 231-248, November.
    9. Troyan, Peter, 2017. "Collusion and signaling in auctions with interdependent values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 319-345.
    10. Philip A. Haile, 2001. "Auctions with Resale Markets: An Application to U.S. Forest Service Timber Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 399-427, June.
    11. 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.
    12. Marco Pagnozzi, 2010. "Are Speculators Unwelcome in Multi-object Auctions?," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 97-131, May.
    13. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Asymmetric Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 413-438.
    14. 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.
    15. Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2013. "Bribing in first-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 214-228.
    16. Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2015. "Bribing in second-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 191-205.
    17. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    18. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    19. Ulrich Doraszelski & Katja Seim & Michael Sinkinson & Peichun Wang, 2017. "Ownership Concentration and Strategic Supply Reduction," NBER Working Papers 23034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Mailath, George J. & Zemsky, Peter, 1991. "Collusion in second price auctions with heterogeneous bidders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 467-486, November.
    21. Graham, Daniel A & Marshall, Robert C, 1987. "Collusive Bidder Behavior at Single-Object Second-Price and English Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1217-1239, December.
    22. Haile, Philip A., 2003. "Auctions with private uncertainty and resale opportunities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 72-110, January.
    23. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2020. "Clock Auctions and Radio Spectrum Reallocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(1), pages 1-31.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2016. "Optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 347-371.
    2. Garratt, Rodney & Georganas, Sotiris, 2021. "Auctions with speculators: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 256-270.
    3. 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.
    4. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    5. Isa Hafalir & Musab Kurnaz, 2019. "Discriminatory auctions with resale," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 173-189, December.
    6. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Lopez-Vargas, Kristian & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2015. "Multi-object auctions with resale: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-16.
    7. Pagnozzi, Marco & Saral, Krista Jabs, 2013. "Multi-Object Auctions with Resale: An Experimental Analysis," MPRA Paper 43665, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Loertscher, Simon & Marx, Leslie M., 2017. "Auctions with bid credits and resale," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 58-90.
    9. Troyan, Peter, 2017. "Collusion and signaling in auctions with interdependent values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 319-345.
    10. Olga Gorelkina, 2014. "Bidder Collusion and the Auction with Target Bids," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    11. Mingrong Wang & Mingxi Wang & Lihua Lang, 2017. "Reconsidering Carbon Permits Auction Mechanism: An Efficient Dynamic Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(8), pages 1624-1645, August.
    12. Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2015. "Bribing in second-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 191-205.
    13. Pagnozzi, Marco & Saral, Krista J., 2019. "Efficiency in auctions with (failed) resale," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 254-273.
    14. Brusco, Sandro & Lopomo, Giuseppe & Marx, Leslie M., 2009. "The [`]Google effect' in the FCC's 700Â MHz auction," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 101-114, June.
    15. John Asker & Mariagiovanna Baccara & SangMok Lee, 2021. "Patent auctions and bidding coalitions: structuring the sale of club goods," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(3), pages 662-690, September.
    16. Lange, Andreas & List, John A. & Price, Michael K., 2011. "Auctions with resale when private values are uncertain: Evidence from the lab and field," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 54-64, January.
    17. Xiaogang Che & Tilman Klumpp, 2023. "Auctions versus sequential mechanisms when resale is allowed," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 1207-1245, May.
    18. Marshall, Robert C. & Marx, Leslie M., 2007. "Bidder collusion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 374-402, March.
    19. Che, Yeon-Koo & Kim, Jinwoo, 2009. "Optimal collusion-proof auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 565-603, March.
    20. Agranov, Marina & Yariv, Leeat, 2018. "Collusion through communication in auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Speculation; Procurement; Auction theory; Acquisition; Supply reduction; Supply withholding;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    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:eee:jetheo:v:212:y:2023:i:c:s0022053123000881. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    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.