Putting auction theory to work : the simultaneous ascending auction

The"simultaneous ascending auction"was first introduced in 1994 to sell licenses to use bands of radio spectrum in the United States. Much of the attention devoted to the auction came from its role in reducing federal regulation of the radio spectrum and allowing market values, rather than administrative fiat, to determine who would use the spectrum resource. Several parts of economic theory proved helpful in designing the rules for simultaneous ascending auction and in thinking about how the design might be improved and adapted for new applications. After briefly reviewing the major rules of the auction in section 2, the author turns in section 3 to an analysis based on tatonnement theory, which regards the auction as a mechanism for discovering an efficient allocation and its supporting prices. The analysis reveals a fundamental difference between situations in which the licenses are mutual substitutes and others in which the same licenses are sometimes substitutes and sometimes complements. Section 4 is a selective account of some applications of game theory to evaluating the simultaneous ascending auction design for spectrum sales. Results like those reported in section 3 have led to renewed interest in auctions in which bids for license packages are permitted. In section 5, the author uses game theory to analyze the biases in a leading proposal for dynamic combinatorial bidding. Section 6 briefly answers two additional questions that economists often ask about auction design: If trading of licenses after the auction is allowed, why does the auction form matter at all for promoting efficient license assignments? Holding fixed the quantity of licenses to be sold, how sharp is the conflict between the objectives of assigning licenses efficiently and obtaining maximum revenue? Section 7 concludes.Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Markets and Market Access,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Spectrum Auction Design

Spectrum auctions are used by governments to assign and price licenses for wireless communications. The standard approach is the simultaneous ascending auction, in which many related lots are auctioned simultaneously in a sequence of rounds. I analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the approach with examples from US spectrum auctions. I then present a variation, the package clock auction, adopted by the UK, which addresses many of the problems of the simultaneous ascending auction while building on its strengths. The package clock auction is a simple dynamic auction in which bidders bid on packages of lots. Most importantly, the auction allows alternative technologies that require the spectrum to be organized in different ways to compete in a technology-neutral auction. In addition, the pricing rule and information policy are carefully tailored to mitigate gaming behavior. An activity rule based on revealed preference promotes price discovery throughout the clock stage of the auction. Truthful bidding is encouraged, which simplifies bidding and improves efficiency. Experimental tests and early auctions confirm the advantages of the approach.Auctions, spectrum auctions, market design, package auction, clock auction, combinatorial auction

The Role of Auctions in Allocating Public Resources

This paper provides an economic framework within which to consider the effectiveness and limitations of auction markets. The paper looks at the use of auctions as a policy instrument and the effects of auction design on consumer interests, the efficient allocation of resources, and industry competitiveness.Australia; Research; Ascending-bid auction; Auctions; Bidders; Conservation funds; Descending-bid auction; Dutch auction; English auction; Environmental Management; First-price sealed-bid auction; Infrastructure; Markets; Oral auction; Outcry auction; Pollutant emission permits; Power supply contracts; Public resources; Radio- spectrum; Second-price sealed-bid auction Spectrum licences; Vickrey auction; Water rights;

Multi-Unit Open Ascending Price Efficient Auction

This paper presents an open ascending price mechanism that allocates efficiently M units of the same good among N bidders with interdependent values The mechanism consists of a number of sequential English auctions with reentry and has the following attributes. In each of the individual auctions all the bidders compete simultaneously in the open ascending price format. The most distinctive feature of the mechanism is that winners are determined first, and then additional auxillary auctions are conducted to determine prices. The total number of auctions depends only on the number of goods to be allocated and not on the number of bidders.Multiple units, Interdependent values, Sequential auctions, Ascending price auction

The Role of Auction Design in Awarding Spectrum

Auctions play an important role in economics. In their most basic form, they are one of the ways in which various commodities, financial assets and concession rights are allocated to individuals and firms, particularly in a market-oriented setting. An auction is a market institution with an explicit set of rules determining resource allocation and prices on the basis of bids from the market participants. Since some products such as spectrum concessions have no standard value, auctions provide one way approaching the question of price formation of these products.This paper explores the details of Turkish GSM 1800 MHz auction held in April, 2000 within auction theory and competition policies framework. According to the findings of this study, since the auction design inappropriately dealt with market conditions, Is-Tim, winning bidders of one of two spectrums on offer, was able to make a high bid by deriving the price of first license, the reserve price of second one, up to excessive level, so other bidders were not able to afford to bid over this price at second round. First finding of this study is that Is-Tim is either predatory pricer or winner s curse both of which undermines general economic efficiency. As a result by not selling second license, Turkish GSM market has been unnecessarily concentrated; Turkish Treasury has obtained less revenue than it would; and the liability of TT owner of third license at the extremely high winning price of the first license, has soared more than what it otherwise would be by possibly undermining the market value of TT.Auction, Competition Policies, Concession, Spectrum Rights, Turkey

Use of auctions in allocation of radio spectrum

The advancement of wireless applications and emergence of new technologies over the past decades has increased the demand for spectrum licenses. This has also increased the complementary nature of licenses reducing the effectiveness of auction mechanisms previously used in spectrum allocation. This especially affects the popular SMRA model which has produced good results in the past, but has poor ability to deal with complementary products. Therefore new auction mechanisms must be developed. This thesis focuses on theoretical analysis of the most prominent spectrum auction model called the combinatorial clock auction model. CCA model’s biggest advantage over other models is its ability to deal with complementary licenses which eliminates the exposure risk and helps the government to reach efficient allocation of radio spectrum. Due to the complexity of the model, the previously popular SMRA and ascending clock auction models will have their applications in the future, but CCA is likely to outperform them in more complex settings. Empirical results show that CCA is producing good outcomes but as the number of licenses grows the auction rules require tweaking in order to maintain the high efficiency

The optimality of being efficient : designing auctions

A cornerstone of the auction literature is the theory of"optimal auctions."'This theory uses mechanism design techniques to characterize, in general settings, the auction that maximizes the seller's expected revenues. One feature of the solution is that typically there is a conflict between the goals of revenue maximization and efficiency. The revenue-optimizing seller often either places goods in hands other than those who value them the most or withholds goods entirely from the market. However, the conclusion that the seller gains by assigning goods inefficiently depends critically on two strong assumptions: (1) the seller can prevent resale among bidders from occurring after the auction; and (2) the seller can commit to not sell the withheld goods after the auction. In this paper, the authors examine how the optimal auction problem changes when one or both of these assumptions are relaxed. This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the authors establish the seller's general incentive to misassign goods and they identify settings where the optimal auction is efficient. In section 3, they solve two variations on the optimal auction, which recognize the possibility of resale. Section 4 proves that perfect resale destroys the seller's incentive to misassign goods. Section 5 establishes that with perfect resale, any misassignment of goods results in strictly lower seller revenues than the best efficient assignment. In section 6, the paper shows that the Vickrey auction is not distorted by the possibility of resale.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Markets,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies

Market design for new leaders

In this article we explore some of the theoretical developments over the last 40 years which led to the emergence of the field of market design. This new field has had a substantive impact on policy, especially after the highly successful auctions of the mobile telephony licences in the mid-1990s in the US. The auctions replaced an inefficient allocation system where licences were allocated to applicants via a lottery and subsequently sold for large windfalls. These auctions raised substantial amount of revenue for the US government and were adopted worldwide, including in Australia. First, I provide a brief history of market design in cases where monetary payments can be used as the basis to allocate goods and services. This history starts with the game theoretical foundations of non-cooperative behaviour – as typically the interests of different individuals are in conflict, for example, when buying or selling goods and services – and then moves on to mechanism design and auction theory and practice. Second, I will review a very large experiment in Brazil where markets were created to avoid electricity rationing in 2001. The choice of this example is not inconsequential. It is meant to illustrate that such an approach to public policy can be successful even in developing countries with weaker institutions. I will then provide some concluding comments