Auctions of Divisible Goods: On the Rationale for the Treasury Experiment

Kerry Back and Jaime F Zender

The Review of Financial Studies, 1993, vol. 6, issue 4, 733-64

Abstract: We compare a sealed-bid uniform-price auction (the Treasury's experimental format) with a sealed bid discriminatory auction (the Treasury's format heretofore), assuming the good is perfectly divisible. We show that the auction theory that prompted the experiment, which assumes single-unit demands, does not adequately describe the bidding game for Treasury securities. Collusive strategies are self-enforcing in uniform-price divisible-good auctions. In these equilibria, the seller's expected revenue is lower than in equilibria of discriminatory auctions. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

Date: 1993
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