Journal of Economic Perspectives
ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)
What Really Matters in Auction Design
Journal of Economic Perspectives
(pp. 169–189)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry-deterring behavior. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems. The Anglo-Dutch auction - a hybrid of the sealed-bid and ascending auctions - may perform better. Effective antitrust is also critical. Notable fiascoes in auctioning mobile-phone licenses, television franchises, companies, eletricty, etc., and especially the European "third-generation" (UMTS) spectrum auctions, show that everything depends on the details of the context. Auction design is not "one size fits all."Citation
Klemperer, Paul. 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design." Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (1): 169–189. DOI: 10.1257/0895330027166JEL Classification
- D44 Auctions