Efficient multi-unit auctions for normal goods

Brian Baisa ()

Theoretical Economics, 2020, vol. 15, issue 1

Abstract: I study multi-unit auction design when bidders have private values, multi-unit demands, and non-quasilinear preferences. Without quasilinearity, the Vickrey auction loses its desired incentive and efficiency properties. I give conditions under which we can design a mechanism that retains the Vickrey auction’s desirable incentive and efficiency properties: (1) individual rationality, (2) dominant strategy incentive compatibility, and (3) Pareto efficiency. I show that there is a mechanism that retains the desired properties of the Vickrey auction if there are two bidders who have single-dimensional types. I also present an impossibility theorem that shows that there is no mechanism that satisfies Vickrey’s desired properties and weak budget balance when bidders have multi-dimensional types.

Keywords: Multi-unit auctions; multi-dimensional mechanism design; wealth effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 D47 D61 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-02-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20200361/26197/765 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:the:publsh:3430

Access Statistics for this article

Theoretical Economics is currently edited by Simon Board, Todd D. Sarver, Juuso Toikka, Rakesh Vohra, Pierre-Olivier Weill

More articles in Theoretical Economics from Econometric Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Martin J. Osborne ().