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First Price Auctions with General Information Structures: Implications for Bidding and Revenue

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Abstract

We explore the impact of private information in sealed bid first price auctions. For a given symmetric and arbitrarily correlated prior distribution over values, we characterize the lowest winning bid distribution that can arise across all information structures and equilibria. The information and equilibrium attaining this minimum leave bidders uncertain whether they will win or lose and indifferent between their equilibrium bids and all higher bids. Our results provide lower bounds for bids and revenue with asymmetric distributions over values. We report further analytic and computational characterizations of revenue and bidder surplus including upper bounds on revenue. Our work has implications for the identification of value distributions from winning bid data and for the informationally robust comparison of alternative bidding mechanisms.

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  • Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2015. "First Price Auctions with General Information Structures: Implications for Bidding and Revenue," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2018R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Nov 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2018r
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    First price auction; Information structure; Bayes correlated equilibrium; Private values; Interdependent values; Common values; Revenue; Surplus; Welfare bounds; Reserve price;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • 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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