Rank-Based Methods for the Analysis of Auctions

Ed Hopkins

Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series from Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh

Abstract: A new method is proposed for the analysis of first price and all pay auctions, where bidding functions are written not as functions of values but as functions of the rank or quantile of the bidder's value in the distribution from which it was drawn. This method gives new results in both symmetric and asymmetric cases with independent values. It is shown that under this new method if one bidder has a stochastically higher distribution of values then her bidding function in terms of rank will always be higher than her rival's. This is a clearer result under weaker conditions than using standard methods. We also look at auctions where one bidder has more precise information than the other.

Keywords: first price auctions; all pay auctions; comparative statics; games of incomplete information; stochastic dominance; rank; quantile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D44 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.ed.ac.uk/papers/id173_esedps.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Rank-Based Methods for the Analysis of Auctions (2008)
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:edn:esedps:173

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series from Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh 31 Buccleuch Place, EH8 9JT, Edinburgh. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Research Office (econ-research@ed.ac.uk).