Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Jan, 2001, Volume 69, Issue 1

Efficiency of Large Private Value Auctions

https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0262.00178
p. 37-68

Jeroen M. Swinkels

We consider discriminatory and uniform price auctions for multiple identical units of a good. Players have private values, possibly asymmetrically distributed and for multiple units. Our setting allows for aggregate uncertainty about demand and supply. In this setting, equlibria generally will be inefficient. Despite this, we show that such auctions become arbitrarily close to efficient if they are “large,” and use this to derive an asymptotic characterization of revenue and bidding behavior.


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