IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iek/wpaper/1304.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Auctions with imperfect commitment when the reserve may serve as a signal

Author

Listed:
  • Byoung Heon Jun

    (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea)

  • Elmar G. Wolfstetter

    (Institute of Economic Theory I, Humboldt University at Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

If bidders are uncertain whether the auctioneer sticks to the announced reserve, some bidders respond by strategic non-participation, speculating that the auctioneer may revoke the reserve. However, the reserve inadvertently signals the auctioneer’s type, which drives a unique separating and a multitude of pooling equilibria. If one eliminates belief systems that violate the“intuitive criterion†, one obtains a unique equilibrium reserve price equal to the seller’s own valuation. Paradoxically, even if bidders initially believe that the auctioneer is bound by his reserve almost with certainty, commitment has no value.

Suggested Citation

  • Byoung Heon Jun & Elmar G. Wolfstetter, 2013. "Auctions with imperfect commitment when the reserve may serve as a signal," Discussion Paper Series 1304, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    • Handle: RePEc:iek:wpaper:1304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.korea.ac.kr/~ri/WorkingPapers/w1304.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bagwell, Kyle, 1995. "Commitment and observability in games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 271-280.
    2. 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.
    3. Gábor Virág, 2013. "First-price auctions with resale: the case of many bidders," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(1), pages 129-163, January.
    4. Isa Hafalir & Vijay Krishna, 2008. "Asymmetric Auctions with Resale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 87-112, March.
    5. Rod Garratt & Thomas Tröger, 2006. "Speculation in Standard Auctions with Resale," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 753-769, May.
    6. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    7. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 1997. "Games with Imperfectly Observable Commitment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 21(1-2), pages 282-308, October.
    8. McAfee, R. Preston & Vincent, Daniel, 1997. "Sequentially Optimal Auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 246-276, February.
    9. Caillaud, Bernard & Mezzetti, Claudio, 2004. "Equilibrium reserve prices in sequential ascending auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 78-95, July.
    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. Jun, Byoung Heon & Wolfstetter, Elmar G., 2015. "Auctions with imperfect commitment when the reserve may signal the cost to re-auction," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 11-21.
    2. Jun, Byoung Heon & Wolfstetter, Elmar G., 2013. "Auctions with imperfect commitment when the reserve may signal the auctioneer's type," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 403, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    3. 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.
    4. Hannu Vartiainen, 2003. "Auction Design without Commitment," Working Papers 2003.24, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    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. 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.
    7. Alexander Matros & Andriy Zapechelnyuk, 2008. "Optimal fees in internet auctions," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 12(3), pages 155-163, September.
    8. Celik, Gorkem & Yilankaya, Okan, 2017. "Resale in second-price auctions with costly participation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 148-174.
    9. Che, XiaoGang & Lee, Peter & Yang, Yibai, 2013. "The impact of resale on entry in second price auctions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 163-168.
    10. Bernard Lebrun, 2010. "First‐price auctions with resale and with outcomes robust to bid disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 165-178, March.
    11. Georganas, Sotiris & Kagel, John, 2011. "Asymmetric auctions with resale: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 359-371, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Robert Zeithammer, 2007. "—Optimal Selling in Dynamic Auctions: Adaptation Versus Commitment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 859-867, 11-12.
    14. Matros, Alexander & Zapechelnyuk, Andriy, 2011. "Optimal mechanisms for an auction mediator," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 426-431, July.
    15. Reuben Bearman, 2023. "Signaling Games with Costly Monitoring," Papers 2302.01116, arXiv.org.
    16. Garratt, Rodney & Georganas, Sotiris, 2021. "Auctions with speculators: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 256-270.
    17. Lamy, Laurent, 2009. "The Shill Bidding Effect versus the Linkage Principle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 390-413, January.
    18. de Haan, Thomas & Offerman, Theo & Sloof, Randolph, 2011. "Noisy signaling: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 402-428.
    19. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    20. Marco Pagnozzi, 2007. "Should Speculators Be Welcomed in Auctions?," CSEF Working Papers 176, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auctions; mechanism design;

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D45 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Rationing; Licensing

    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:iek:wpaper:1304. 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: Kim, Jisoo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ierkukr.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.