What Really Matters in Auction Design

Paul Klemperer

No 2581, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry deterring behaviour. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems (we discuss radiospectrum and football TV-rights auctions, electricity markets, and takeover battles), and the Anglo-Dutch auction ? a hybrid of the sealed-bid and ascending auctions may often perform better. However, everything depends on the details of the context; the circumstances of the recent UK mobile-phone license auction made an ascending format ideal. We also discuss the current 3G spectrum auctions in Germany and the Netherlands. Auction design is a matter of ?horses for courses?, not ?one size fits all?.

Keywords: Antitrust; Collusion; Predation; Radiospectrum; Umts; Takeovers; Mechanism design; Bidding; Auction theory; Electricity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 D44 L13 L41 L96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Related works:
Journal Article: What Really Matters in Auction Design (2002)
Working Paper: What Really Matters in Auction Design (2000)
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