IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1764r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Should Auctions be Transparent?

Author

Abstract

We investigate the role of market transparency in repeated first-price auctions. We consider a setting with independent private and persistent values. We analyze three distinct disclosure regimes regarding the bid and award history. In the minimal disclosure regime each bidder only learns privately whether he won or lost the auction. In equilibrium the allocation is efficient and the minimal disclosure regime does not give rise to pooling equilibria. In contrast, in disclosure settings where either all or only the winner’s bids are public, an inefficient pooling equilibrium with low revenues exists.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Bergemann & Johannes Horner, 2010. "Should Auctions be Transparent?," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1764R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1764r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d17/d1764-r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Svend Albæk & Peter Møllgaard & Per B. Overgaard, 1997. "Government‐Assisted Oligopoly Coordination? A Concrete Case," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 429-443, December.
    2. Timothy N. Cason & Karthik N. Kannan & Ralph Siebert, 2011. "An Experimental Study of Information Revelation Policies in Sequential Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(4), pages 667-688, April.
    3. Blume, Andreas, 2003. "Bertrand without fudge," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 167-168, February.
    4. Maskin, Eric & Riley, John, 2003. "Uniqueness of equilibrium in sealed high-bid auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 395-409, November.
    5. Kleijnen, J.P.C. & van Schaik, F.D.J., 2007. "Sealed-Bid Auction of Dutch Mussels : Statistical Analysis," Other publications TiSEM ad4ed28a-8d20-4d5a-bdc2-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Jacob Rubinstein & Elmar Wolfstetter & Michael Landsberger & Shmuel Zamir, 2001. "First-price auctions when the ranking of valuations is common knowledge," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 6(3), pages 461-480.
    7. , & , & ,, 2011. "Revenue maximization in the dynamic knapsack problem," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(2), May.
    8. Cramton Peter & Schwartz Jesse A, 2002. "Collusive Bidding in the FCC Spectrum Auctions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-20, December.
    9. Kaya, Ayça & Liu, Qingmin, 2015. "Transparency and price formation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    10. Charles J. Thomas, 2010. "Information Revelation And Buyer Profits In Repeated Procurement Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 79-105, March.
    11. Estelle Cantillon & Martin Pesendorfer, 2006. "Auctioning bus routes: the London experience," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9003, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Johan Stennek, 1997. "Coordination in Oligopoly," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 541-554, December.
    13. Chwe, Michael Suk-Young, 1989. "The discrete bid first auction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 303-306, December.
    14. Matthew O. Jackson & Leo K. Simon & Jeroen M. Swinkels & William R. Zame, 2002. "Communication and Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games of Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1711-1740, September.
    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. 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, 2012. "The Design of Ambiguous Mechanisms," Working Papers 446, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    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.

    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. Alcalde, José & Dahm, Matthias, 2008. "The Complete Information First. Price Auction or the Importance of Being Indivisible," Working Papers 2072/13264, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Porter, Robert H., 2020. "Mergers and coordinated effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Micola, Augusto Ruperez & Bunn, Derek W., 2008. "Crossholdings, concentration and information in capacity-constrained sealed bid-offer auctions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 748-766, June.
    4. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 2003. "Entry in telecommunication: customer loyalty, price sensitivity and access prices," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 55-72, March.
    5. Michael Gmeiner, 2019. "Seasonal Demand and Net Entry," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1135-1143.
    6. Jonathan Baker & Paul Sa, 2010. "The Year in Economics at the FCC: A National Plan for Broadband," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(4), pages 279-290, December.
    7. Kenneth Njoroge & Amalia Yiannaka & Konstantinos Giannakas & Azzeddine M. Azzam, 2007. "Market and Welfare Effects of the U.S. Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(1), pages 290-311, July.
    8. Lamy, Laurent, 2012. "The econometrics of auctions with asymmetric anonymous bidders," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 167(1), pages 113-132.
    9. Liliane Karlinger, 2008. "How Demand Information Can Destabilize a Cartel," Vienna Economics Papers 0803, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2000. "Does information about competitors' actions increase or decrease competition in experimental oligopoly markets?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 39-57, January.
    12. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    13. Patrick Rey & Jean Tirole, 2019. "Price Caps as Welfare-Enhancing Coopetition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 3018-3069.
    14. Ronald W. Cotterill & Tirtha Pratim Dhar, 2003. "Oligopoly Pricing with Differentiated Products: The Boston Fluid Milk Market Channel," Food Marketing Policy Center Research Reports 074, University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    15. Gomez-Martinez, Francisco & Onderstal, Sander & Sonnemans, Joep, 2016. "Firm-specific information and explicit collusion in experimental oligopolies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 132-141.
    16. Waterson, Michael, 2003. "The role of consumers in competition and competition policy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 129-150, February.
    17. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock, 2011. "Endogenous rationing, price dispersion and collusion in capacity constrained supergames," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 47(1), pages 29-74, May.
    18. Armstrong, Mark & Huck, Steffen, 2010. "Behavioral economics as applied to firms: a primer," MPRA Paper 20356, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Helmuts Āzacis, 2020. "Information disclosure by a seller in sequential first-price auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(2), pages 411-444, June.
    20. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    First price auction; Repeated auction; Private bids; Information revelation;
    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
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwl:cwldpp:1764r. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.