IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sip/dpaper/08-023.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Winning Play in Spectrum Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Bulow

    (Gradudate School of Business, Stanford University)

  • Jonathan Levin

    (Stanford University)

  • Paul Milgrom

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

We describe factors that make bidding in large spectrum auctions complex including exposure and budget problems, the role of timing within an ascending auction, and the possibilities for price forecasting and how economic and game-theoretic analysis can assist bidders in overcoming these problems. As an example, we consider the case of the FCC's Advanced Wireless Service auction, in which a new entrant, SpectrumCo, faced all these problems yet managed to purchase nationwide coverage at a discount of roughly a third relative to the prices paid by its incumbent competitors in the same auction, saving more than a billion dollars.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Bulow & Jonathan Levin & Paul Milgrom, 2009. "Winning Play in Spectrum Auctions," Discussion Papers 08-023, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:08-023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/08-023.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandro Brusco & Giuseppe Lopomo, 2002. "Collusion via Signalling in Simultaneous Ascending Bid Auctions with Heterogeneous Objects, with and without Complementarities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(2), pages 407-436.
    2. Milgrom,Paul, 2004. "Putting Auction Theory to Work," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521536721.
    3. Paul Milgrom, 2000. "Putting Auction Theory to Work: The Simultaneous Ascending Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 245-272, April.
    4. Zheng, Charles Z., 2012. "Jump bidding and overconcentration in decentralized simultaneous ascending auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 648-664.
    5. Paul Klemperer, 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 169-189, Winter.
    6. Michael H. Rothkopf, 2007. "Thirteen Reasons Why the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves Process Is Not Practical," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 191-197, April.
    7. Peter Cramton & Yoav Shoham & Richard Steinberg, 2004. "Combinatorial Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 04mit, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2004.
    8. Gul, Faruk & Stacchetti, Ennio, 2000. "The English Auction with Differentiated Commodities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 66-95, May.
    9. Robert W. Day & Peter Cramton, 2012. "Quadratic Core-Selecting Payment Rules for Combinatorial Auctions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 588-603, June.
    10. Peter Cramton & Yoav Shoham & Richard Steinberg (ed.), 2006. "Combinatorial Auctions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033429, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Robert Day & Paul Milgrom, 2008. "Core-selecting package auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 393-407, March.
    13. Paul Milgrom, 2007. "Package Auctions and Exchanges," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 935-965, 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. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    2. Paul Milgrom, 2009. "Assignment Messages and Exchanges," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 95-113, August.
    3. Alexander Teytelboym & Shengwu Li & Scott Duke Kominers & Mohammad Akbarpour & Piotr Dworczak, 2021. "Discovering Auctions: Contributions of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 709-750, July.
    4. Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "What Have We Learned from Market Design?," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 79-112.
    5. Goeree, Jacob K. & Lien, Yuanchuan, 2014. "An equilibrium analysis of the simultaneous ascending auction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 506-533.
    6. Ning Sun & Zaifu Yang, 2014. "An Efficient and Incentive Compatible Dynamic Auction for Multiple Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(2), pages 422-466.
    7. Peter Cramton, 2013. "Spectrum Auction Design," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(2), pages 161-190, March.
    8. Zheng, Charles Z., 2012. "Jump bidding and overconcentration in decentralized simultaneous ascending auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 648-664.
    9. Lamprirni Zarpala & Dimitris Voliotis, 2022. "A core-selecting auction for portfolio's packages," Papers 2206.11516, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    10. Nicolas C. Bedard & Jacob K. Goeree & Philippos Louis & Jingjing Zhang, 2020. "The Favored but Flawed Simultaneous Multiple-Round Auction," Working Paper Series 2020/03, Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    11. A. Talman & Zaifu Yang, 2015. "An efficient multi-item dynamic auction with budget constrained bidders," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(3), pages 769-784, August.
    12. Benedikt Bünz & Benjamin Lubin & Sven Seuken, 2022. "Designing Core-Selecting Payment Rules: A Computational Search Approach," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1157-1173, December.
    13. Satoru Fujishige & Zaifu Yang, 2020. "A Universal Dynamic Auction for Unimodular Demand Types: An Efficient Auction Design for Various Kinds of Indivisible Commodities," Discussion Papers 20/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. Bajari, Patrick & Yeo, Jungwon, 2009. "Auction design and tacit collusion in FCC spectrum auctions," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 90-100, June.
    15. Patrick Bajari & Jungwon Yeo, 2008. "Auction Design and Tacit Collusion in FCC Spectrum Auctions," NBER Working Papers 14441, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. John William Hatfield & Paul R. Milgrom, 2005. "Matching with Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 913-935, September.
    17. Itai Sher, 2012. "Optimal shill bidding in the VCG mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 341-387, June.
    18. Janssen, Maarten & Kasberger, Bernhard, 2019. "On the clock of the combinatorial clock auction," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), November.
    19. , K. & ,, 2016. "On the impossibility of core-selecting auctions," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), January.
    20. Janssen, Maarten & Kasberger, Bernhard, 2019. "On the clock of the combinatorial clock auction," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Game Theory; Bidding; Exposure; Budget Problems; Price Forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General

    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:sip:dpaper:08-023. 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: Anne Shor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cestaus.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.