Measuring the Efficiency of an FCC Spectrum Auction

Patrick Bajari and Jeremy Fox

No 11671, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: FCC spectrum auctions sell licenses to provide mobile phone service in designated geographic territories. We propose a method to structurally estimate the deterministic component of bidder valuations and apply it to the 1995-1996 C-block auction. We base our estimation of bidder values on a pairwise stability condition, which implies that two bidders cannot exchange licenses in a way that increases total surplus. Pairwise stability holds in many theoretical models of simultaneous ascending auctions, including some models of intimidatory collusion and demand reduction. Pairwise stability is also approximately satisfied in data that we examine from economic experiments. The lack of post-auction resale also suggests pairwise stability. Using our estimates of deterministic valuations, we measure the allocative efficiency of the C-block outcome.

JEL-codes: C1 L0 L5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-gth and nep-mic
Note: IO
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Jeremy T. Fox & Patrick Bajari, 2013. "Measuring the Efficiency of an FCC Spectrum Auction," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 100-146, February.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11671.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring the Efficiency of an FCC Spectrum Auction (2013)
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:nbr:nberwo:11671

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11671

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().