Ascending Auctions with Package Bidding：（提升与包投标拍卖）.pdfVIP

Ascending Auctions with Package Bidding * By Lawrence M. Ausubel, University of Maryland and Paul Milgrom, Stanford University This draft: June 7, 2001 Comments welcome! Abstract . A benchmark “package auction” is introduced in which bidders may determine their own packages on which to bid. If all bidders bid straightforwardly, then the outcome is a point in the core of the exchange economy that minimizes the seller’s revenue. When goods are substitutes, straightforward bidding strategies comprise an ex post Nash equilibrium. Compared to the Vickrey auction, the benchmark ascending package auction has cheaper information processing, better handling of budget constraints, and less vulnerability to joint bidding strategies among bidders who would otherwise be losers. Improvements are suggested that speed the auction and limit opportunities for collusion. 1. Introduction Asset sales often begin with an evaluation by the seller about how to divide an asset into suitable marketable pieces. A farm can be sold either as a single entity or in pieces comprising the house and barn, the arable land, other land, and perhaps water rights; radio spectrum licenses can cover an entire nation or be split among smaller geographic areas and the available set of frequencies in each area sold as a single unit or in smaller pieces; a large company can be sold intact to new owners or broken up into individual product divisions. The regulators, brokers, investment bankers and auctioneers who conduct these sale s commonly consult potential bidders in an effort to identify which packages they find most attractive and which best advance the seller’s efficiency or revenue goals. 1 Some auction designs are flexible, allowing bidders a choice of packages on which to bid. For example, Cassady (1967) describes