A Study of Collusion in First-Price Auctions
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper examines the bidding for school milk contracts in Florida and Texas during the 1980s. In both states firms were convicted of bid-rigging. The data and legal evidence suggest that the cartels in the two states allocate contracts in different ways: One cartel divides the market among members, while the other cartel also uses side payments to compensate members for refraining from bidding. We show that both forms of cartel agreements are almost optimal, provided the number of contracts is sufficiently large. In the auction the cartel bidder may face competition from non-cartel bidders. The presence of an optimal cartel induces an asymmetry in the auction. The selected cartel bidder is bidding as a representative of a group and has on average a lower cost than a non-cartel bidder. The data support the predicted equilibrium bidding behaviour in asymmetric auctions in accordance with optimal cartels.
منابع مشابه
How to Eliminate Collusion in Tenders and Auctions, using Game Theory (Determination of Ceiling and Floor Prices)
Governments and firms in accordance to their duties, obliged to inevitably contracts with Individuals and legal entities, especially in auction and tender process. Since, the law of conducting tenders and auctions is lacking efficiency and has major objection, therefore, this has led to the dissemination and development of areas of corruption in these contracts (through collusion). In this pape...
متن کاملCollusion through communication in auctions
We study the extent to which communication can serve as a collusion device in one-shot firstand second-price sealed-bid auctions. Theoretically, second-price auctions are more fragile to collusion through communication than first-price auctions. In an array of laboratory experiments we vary the amount of interactions (communication and/or transfers without commitment) available to bidders. We f...
متن کاملAuction Mechanisms and Bidder Collusion: Bribes, Signals and Selection
The theoretical literature on collusion in auctions suggests that the first-price mechanism can deter the formation of bidding rings. In equilibrium, collusive negotiations are either successful or are avoided altogether, hence such analysis neglects the effects of failed collusion attempts. In such contingencies, information revealed in the negotiation process is likely to affect the bidding b...
متن کاملLinear Programming for Mechanism Design: An Application to Bidder Collusion at First-Price Auctions
We demonstrate the use of linear programming techniques in the analysis of mechanism design problems. We use these techniques to analyze the extent to which a rst-price auction is robust to collusion when, contrary to some prior literature on collusion at rst-price auctions, the cartel cannot prevent its members from bidding at the auction. In this case, cartels have been shown to be less pro...
متن کاملDivision of the Humanities and Social Sciences California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 91125 Collision in Private Value Ascending Price Auctions
We investigate bidder collusion in one-sided ascending price auctions without communication. If bidding rules in an English-type auction allow bidders to match each others' bids, collusion can be sustained as a Nash equilibrium of a one-shot auction game. Our earlier experiments show that in common value auctions with complete information, collusion does occur and is sustainable even when bidde...
متن کاملCollusion in private value ascending price auctions
We investigate the effects of bid improvement rules and bidder value asymmetry on bidder collusion in experimental ascending price auctions without communication. We find that the strict bid improvement rule and private values are not always sufficient to break collusion among well-motivated bidders. Collusion still occurs as long as bidder gains from collusion are high. JEL classification code...
متن کامل