Revenue guarantee equivalence

Dirk Bergemann, Benjamin Brooks, Stephen Morris

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

We revisit the revenue comparison of standard auction formats, including frst-price, second-price, and English auctions. We rank auctions according to their revenue guarantees, i.e., the greatest lower bound of revenue across all informational environments, where we hold fxed the distribution of bidders' values. We conclude that if we restrict attention to the symmetric affliated models of Milgrom and Weber (1982) and monotonic pure-strategy equilibria, frst-price, second-price, and English auctions are revenue guarantee equivalent: they have the same revenue guarantee, which is equal to that of the frst-price auction as characterized by Bergemann, Brooks, and Morris (2017). If we consider all equilibria or if we allow more general models of information, then frst-price auctions have a greater revenue guarantee than all other auctions considered.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1911-1929
Number of pages19
JournalAmerican Economic Review
Volume109
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Economics and Econometrics

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