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Should Auctions Be Transparent?

Author

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  • Dirk Bergemann
  • Johannes Horner

Abstract

We investigate the role of market transparency in repeated first-price auctions. We consider a setting with private and independent values across bidders. The values are assumed to be perfectly persistent over time. We analyze the first-price auction under three distinct disclosure regimes regarding the bid and award history. Of particular interest is the minimal disclosure regime, in which each bidder only learns privately whether he won or lost the auction at the end of each round. In equilibrium, the winner of the initial auction lowers his bids over time, while losers keep their bids constant, in anticipation of the winner's lower future bids. This equilibrium is efficient, and all information is eventually revealed. Importantly, this disclosure regime does not give rise to pooling equilibria. We contrast the minimal disclosure setting with the case in which all bids are public, and the case in which only the winner's bids are public. In these settings, an inefficient pooling equilibrium with low revenues always exists with a sufficiently large number of bidders.
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Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Bergemann & Johannes Horner, 2010. "Should Auctions Be Transparent?," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000000128, David K. Levine.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:661465000000000128
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    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4661465000000000128.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Bergemann, Dirk & Pavan, Alessandro, 2015. "Introduction to Symposium on Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 679-701.
    2. Yixin Lu & Alok Gupta & Wolfgang Ketter & Eric van Heck, 2019. "Information Transparency in Business-to-Business Auction Markets: The Role of Winner Identity Disclosure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4261-4279, September.
    3. Fuchs, William & Öry, Aniko & Skrzypacz, Andrzej, 2016. "Transparency and distressed sales under asymmetric information," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    4. Yash Kanoria & Hamid Nazerzadeh, 2021. "Incentive-Compatible Learning of Reserve Prices for Repeated Auctions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 509-524, March.
    5. Andreas Hefti & Peiyao Shen & Regina Betz, 2019. "Market power and information effects in a multi-unit auction," ECON - Working Papers 320, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Alfredo di Tillio & Nenad Kos & Matthias Messner, 2017. "The Design of Ambiguous Mechanisms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 237-276.
    7. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Pavan, 2015. "Introduction to JET Symposium Issue on "Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design"," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2016, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. Lu, Y. & Gupta, A. & Ketter, W. & van Heck, H.W.G.M., 2017. "Information Transparency in B2B Auction Markets: The Role of Winner Identity Disclosure," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2017-006-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    9. Yasunari Tamada, 2019. "Disclosure of Contract Clauses and Career Concerns," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(3), pages 1968-1978.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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