Information aggregation in auctions with an unknown number of bidders

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Information aggregation, a key concern for uniform-price, common-value auctions with many bidders, has been characterized in models where bidders know exactly how many rivals they face. A model allowing for uncertainty over the number of bidders is essential for capturing a critical condition for information to aggregate: as the numbers of winning and losing bidders grow large, information aggregates if and only if uncertainty about the fraction of winning bidders vanishes. It may be possible for the seller to impart this information by precommitting to a specified fraction of winning bidders, via a proportional selling policy. Intuitively, this could make the proportion of winners known, and thus provide all the information that bidders need to make winner's curse corrections. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Harstad, RM; Pekeč, AS; Tsetlin, I

Published Date

  • March 1, 2008

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 62 / 2

Start / End Page

  • 476 - 508

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1090-2473

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0899-8256

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.geb.2006.06.002

Citation Source

  • Scopus