IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pcc/pccumd/98wpas.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Auctioning Securities

Author

Abstract

Treasury debt and other divisible securities are traditionally sold in either a pay-your-bid (discriminatory) auction or a uniform-price auction. We compare these auction formats with a Vickrey auction and also with two ascending-bid auctions. The Vickrey auction and the alternative ascending-bid auction (Ausubel 1996) have important theoretical advantages for sellers. In a setting without private information, these auctions achieve the maximal revenue as a unique equilibrium in dominant strategies. In contrast, the pay- your-bid, uniform-price, and standard ascending-bid auction admit a multiplicity of equilibria that yield low revenues for the seller. We show how these results extend to a setting where bidders have affiliated private information. Our results question the standard ways that securities are offered to the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton, 1997. "Auctioning Securities," Papers of Peter Cramton 98wpas, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised Mar 1998.
    • Handle: RePEc:pcc:pccumd:98wpas
    Note: Working Paper
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cramton.umd.edu/papers1995-1999/98wp-auctioning-securities.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    2. Bulow, Jeremy I. & Klemperer, Paul, 1994. "Auctions vs. Negotiations," CEPR Discussion Papers 924, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    4. Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Richard, 1988. "Revenue equivalence in multi-object auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 15-19.
    5. 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.
    6. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    7. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 923-955, December.
    8. Harstad, Ronald M, 1990. "Alternative Common-Value Auction Procedures: Revenue Comparisons with Free Entry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 421-429, April.
    9. V. V. Chari & Robert J. Weber, 1992. "How the U.S. Treasury should auction its debt," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 16(Fall), pages 3-12.
    10. Robert Wilson, 1979. "Auctions of Shares," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 675-689.
    11. Robert J. Weber, 1981. "Multiple-Object Auctions," Discussion Papers 496, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    12. Back, Kerry & Zender, Jaime F, 1993. "Auctions of Divisible Goods: On the Rationale for the Treasury Experiment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 733-764.
    13. Christopher Avery, 1998. "Strategic Jump Bidding in English Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 185-210.
    14. Bikhchandani, Sushil, 1999. "Auctions of Heterogeneous Objects," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 193-220, January.
    15. Noussair, Charles, 1995. "Equilibria in a Multi-object Uniform Price Sealed Bid Auction with Multi-unit Demands," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 337-351, March.
    16. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 1998. "Multi-unit auctions with uniform prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(2), pages 227-258.
    17. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1996. "Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1271-1283, September.
    18. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    19. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1994. "Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 585-599, June.
    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. Gresik, Thomas A., 2001. "Rationing rules and European Central Bank auctions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 793-808, November.
    2. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    3. Naoki Kojima, 2007. "IPO share allocation and conflicts of interest," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 369-387, July.
    4. Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi & Pezanis-Christou, Paul, 2006. "Auctions for government securities: A laboratory comparison of uniform, discriminatory and Spanish designs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 284-303, October.
    5. LiCalzi, Marco & Pavan, Alessandro, 2005. "Tilting the supply schedule to enhance competition in uniform-price auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 227-250, January.
    6. Cameron Hepburn & Michael Grubb & Karsten Neuhoff & Felix Matthes & Maximilien Tse, 2006. "Auctioning of EU ETS phase II allowances: how and why?," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 137-160, January.
    7. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Paul Milgrom, 2012. "System and Method for a Hybrid Clock and Proxy Auction," Papers of Peter Cramton 10acmhc, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    8. Schnitzlein, Charles R. & Shao, Minjie, 2013. "Capacity constraints and the winner's curse in multi-unit common value auctions," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 188-201.
    9. Sunnevåg, Kjell J., 2001. "Auction design for the allocation of multiple units of a homogenous good: Theoretical background and practical experience," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt6wh704p7, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    10. Pantelis Koutroumpis & Martin Cave, 2018. "Auction design and auction outcomes," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 275-297, June.
    11. Bennouri, Moez & Gimpel, Henner & Robert, Jacques, 2011. "Measuring the impact of information aggregation mechanisms: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 302-318, May.
    12. Sara Castellanos, 2001. "Mexican treasury securities primary auctions," Theory workshop papers 357966000000000025, UCLA Department of Economics.
    13. Kjell Sunnevåg, 2003. "Auction Design for the Allocation of Emission Permits in the Presence of Market Power," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(3), pages 385-400, November.
    14. Chemmanur, Thomas J. & Wilhelm, William Jr., 2002. "New Technologies, Financial Innovation, and Intermediation," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 2-8, January.
    15. Daripa, Arupratan, 2001. "A theory of treasury auctions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 743-767, November.
    16. Cramton, Peter, 1998. "Ascending auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 745-756, May.
    17. Robert Wright, 2002. "Reforming the US IPO market: lessons from history and theory," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 419-437.
    18. Preget, Raphaele & Waelbroeck, Patrick, 2005. "Treasury bill auction procedures: Empirical perspectives from French market bid functions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(7), pages 1054-1072, November.
    19. Sara Castellanos, 2001. "A New Empirical Study of the Mexican Treasury Securities Primary Auctions: Is there more underpricing?," Levine's Working Paper Archive 625018000000000206, David K. Levine.

    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. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    2. Roberto Burguet, 2000. "Auction theory: a guided tour," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(1), pages 3-50, January.
    3. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton, 1998. "The Optimality of Being Efficient," Papers of Peter Cramton 98wpoe, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 18 Jun 1999.
    4. Cramton, Peter, 1998. "Ascending auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 745-756, May.
    5. Ausubel, Lawerence M. & Cramton, Peter, 1998. "The optimality of being efficient : designing auctions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1985, The World Bank.
    6. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. Monostori, Zoltán, 2013. "Diszkriminatív áras és egyenáras aukciók [Discriminatory and uniform-price auctions]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1048-1074.
    9. Josheski Dushko & Karamazova Elena, 2021. "Auction theory and a note on game mechanisms," Croatian Review of Economic, Business and Social Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 7(1), pages 43-59, May.
    10. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    11. Susan Athey & Philip A. Haile, 2006. "Empirical Models of Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal, 2006. "Going, Going, Gone! A Swift Tour of Auction Theory and its Applications," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 197-249, June.
    13. Burkett, Justin & Woodward, Kyle, 2020. "Uniform price auctions with a last accepted bid pricing rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    14. Haufe, Marie-Christin & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin, 2018. "Auctions for renewable energy support – Suitability, design, and first lessons learned," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 217-224.
    15. Hernando-Veciana, Ángel, 2009. "Information acquisition in auctions: Sealed bids vs. open bids," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 372-405, March.
    16. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2009. "Bidding Behaviour in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 855-882, April.
    17. Brett E Katzman, 2009. "Asymptotic properties of equilibrium in discriminatory and uniform price ipv multi-unit auctions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(2), pages 834-846.
    18. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 2005. "Low-Revenue Equilibria in Simultaneous Ascending-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 508-518, March.
    19. Cumpston, Anne & Khezr, Peyman, 2020. "Multi-Unit Auctions: A Survey of Theoretical Literature," MPRA Paper 101336, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ahmed Anwar, 2006. "Single or Multiple Pricing in Electricity Pools?," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 143, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auctions; Multi-Unit Auctions; Security Auctions; Treasury Auctions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    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:pcc:pccumd:98wpas. 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: Peter Cramton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cramton.umd.edu .

    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.