IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v31y2001i6p83-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Elementary Introduction to Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Michael H. Rothkopf

    (Rutgers Business School and RUTCOR, Rutgers University, 640 Bartholomew Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8003)

  • Sunju Park

    (Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University, New Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102)

Abstract

An auction designer faces many questions. Among the questions are what precisely is to be sold, who may bid, will there be multiple rounds of bidding, what kinds of payments will be made and which are biddable, how will the bids be compared, how will it be decided if a transaction occurs, how will the price be set, how will sales of multiple items be handled, and what information will be revealed and when. Different academic disciplines have contributed to answering these questions. In addition to OR/MS, these include engineering, economics, sociology, and computer science.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael H. Rothkopf & Sunju Park, 2001. "An Elementary Introduction to Auctions," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 83-97, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:31:y:2001:i:6:p:83-97
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.31.6.83.9637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.31.6.83.9637
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.31.6.83.9637?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey S. Banks & John O. Ledyard & David P. Porter, 1989. "Allocating Uncertain and Unresponsive Resources: An Experimental Approach," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(1), pages 1-25, Spring.
    2. Paul Klemperer, 1999. "Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 227-286, July.
    3. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    4. Michael H. Rothkopf & Ronald M. Harstad, 1994. "Modeling Competitive Bidding: A Critical Essay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(3), pages 364-384, March.
    5. Shmuel S. Oren & Michael H. Rothkopf, 1975. "Optimal Bidding in Sequential Auctions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(6), pages 1080-1090, December.
    6. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    7. Michael H. Rothkopf, 1991. "On Auctions with Withdrawable Winning Bids," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 40-57.
    8. Kagel, John H. & Levin, Dan, 1986. "The Winner's Curse and Public Information in Common Value Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 894-920, December.
    9. Marc S. Robinson, 1985. "Collusion and the Choice of Auction," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(1), pages 141-145, Spring.
    10. Lawrence Friedman, 1956. "A Competitive-Bidding Strategy," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 4(1), pages 104-112, February.
    11. Rothkopf, Michael H & Harstad, Ronald M, 1995. "Two Models of Bid-Taker Cheating in Vickrey Auctions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 257-267, April.
    12. Rothkopf, Michael H & Teisberg, Thomas J & Kahn, Edward P, 1990. "Why Are Vickrey Auctions Rare?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 94-109, February.
    13. Shubik, Martin, 1970. "On Different Methods for Allocating Resources," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 332-337.
    14. John McMillan, 1994. "Selling Spectrum Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 145-162, Summer.
    15. Robert M. Stark & Michael H. Rothkopf, 1979. "Competitive Bidding: A Comprehensive Bibliography," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 364-390, April.
    16. Michael H. Rothkopf & Aleksandar Pekev{c} & Ronald M. Harstad, 1998. "Computationally Manageable Combinational Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(8), pages 1131-1147, August.
    17. Klemperer, Paul, 1999. " Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 227-86, July.
    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. Pickl, Matthias & Wirl, Franz, 2011. "Auction design for gas pipeline transportation capacity--The case of Nabucco and its open season," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 2143-2151, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Ronald M. Harstad & Aleksandar Saša Pekeč, 2008. "Relevance to Practice and Auction Theory: A Memorial Essay for Michael Rothkopf," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 367-380, October.
    4. Gülşah Karakaya & Murat Köksalan, 2016. "An interactive approach for Bi-attribute multi-item auctions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 245(1), pages 97-119, October.
    5. Michael H. Rothkopf, 2007. "Decision Analysis: The Right Tool for Auctions," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(3), pages 167-172, September.
    6. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Elena Katok, 2008. "Regret and Feedback Information in First-Price Sealed-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 808-819, April.
    7. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2008. "Pricing in multiple-item procurement auctions with a common to all items fixed cost," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 190(3), pages 790-797, November.
    8. Gediminas Adomavicius & Alok Gupta & Dmitry Zhdanov, 2009. "Designing Intelligent Software Agents for Auctions with Limited Information Feedback," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 507-526, December.
    9. Jawad Abrache & Teodor Crainic & Michel Gendreau & Monia Rekik, 2007. "Combinatorial auctions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 131-164, September.

    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. Ronald M. Harstad & Aleksandar Saša Pekeč, 2008. "Relevance to Practice and Auction Theory: A Memorial Essay for Michael Rothkopf," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 367-380, October.
    2. Edieal J. Pinker & Abraham Seidmann & Yaniv Vakrat, 2003. "Managing Online Auctions: Current Business and Research Issues," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1457-1484, November.
    3. Park, Sunju & Rothkopf, Michael H., 2005. "Auctions with bidder-determined allowable combinations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(2), pages 399-415, March.
    4. G. Anandalingam & Robert W. Day & S. Raghavan, 2005. "The Landscape of Electronic Market Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 316-327, March.
    5. Aleksandar Pekev{c} & Michael H. Rothkopf, 2003. "Combinatorial Auction Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1485-1503, November.
    6. 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.
    7. Martin Bichler & Alexander Pikovsky & Thomas Setzer, 2009. "An Analysis of Design Problems in Combinatorial Procurement Auctions," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 1(1), pages 111-117, February.
    8. Amar Cheema & Dipankar Chakravarti & Atanu R. Sinha, 2012. "Bidding Behavior in Descending and Ascending Auctions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(5), pages 779-800, September.
    9. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Swider, Derk J. & Weber, Christoph, 2007. "Bidding under price uncertainty in multi-unit pay-as-bid procurement auctions for power systems reserve," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(3), pages 1297-1308, September.
    11. Paul Klemperer, 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 169-189, Winter.
    12. 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.
    13. Michael H. Rothkopf, 2007. "Thirteen Reasons Why the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves Process Is Not Practical," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 191-197, April.
    14. Jawad Abrache & Teodor Crainic & Michel Gendreau & Monia Rekik, 2007. "Combinatorial auctions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 131-164, September.
    15. Gustavo Vulcano & Garrett van Ryzin & Costis Maglaras, 2002. "Optimal Dynamic Auctions for Revenue Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(11), pages 1388-1407, November.
    16. Hailu, Atakelty & Schilizzi, Steven, 2003. "Investigating the performance of market-based instruments for resource conservation: the contribution of agent-based modelling," 2003 Conference (47th), February 12-14, 2003, Fremantle, Australia 57883, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Garrett van Ryzin & Gustavo Vulcano, 2004. "Optimal Auctioning and Ordering in an Infinite Horizon Inventory-Pricing System," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(3), pages 346-367, June.
    18. Rachel R. Chen & Robin O. Roundy & Rachel Q. Zhang & Ganesh Janakiraman, 2005. "Efficient Auction Mechanisms for Supply Chain Procurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 467-482, March.
    19. Yokoo, Makoto & Sakurai, Yuko & Matsubara, Shigeo, 2004. "The effect of false-name bids in combinatorial auctions: new fraud in internet auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 174-188, January.

    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:inm:orinte:v:31:y:2001:i:6:p:83-97. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.