Auction Design without Commitment

Hannu Vartiainen ()

No 44, Discussion Papers from Aboa Centre for Economics

Abstract: We study auction design when parties cannot commit to the mechanism. The seller may change the rules of the game any number of times and the buyers may choose their outside option at any stage of the game. A dynamic consistency condition and an optimality condition property are defined to characterize the seller's mechanism selection behavior. The unique stationary mechanism selection rule that meets the conditions is the English auction.

Keywords: auctions; commitment; consistency; one-deviation property; stationarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D44 D78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta and nep-gth
Date: 2009-03
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Related works:
Working Paper: Auction Design without Commitment (2003)
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