Explaining Bids in First-Price Bid Competitive Auctions for City and County Debt

Mikhail Y. Ivonchyk and Tima T. Moldogaziev

Municipal Finance Journal, 2019, vol. 39, issue 4, 1 - 27

Abstract: Local government competitive debt auctions often occur in a first-price sealed-bid format in which (underwriters) firms submit their bids and the bid with the lowest interest cost wins the auction. Implicit in competitive auctions is the assumption that they are always “competitive.” Focusing on the role of information factors in auctions, this paper investigates the variables behind competition intensity in city and county first-price sealed-bid competitive auctions and identifies a set of important “product” (debt) features and “common information” covariates. These results offer decision tools to municipal government fiscal officers seeking to more efficiently administer their debt management function. Significant interest savings can be realized by actively structuring and timing debt sales toward an “optimal” threshold number of required bids in competitive auctions.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/MFJ39040001 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/MFJ39040001 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:munifj:doi:10.1086/mfj39040001

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Municipal Finance Journal from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().