Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Economics

Supervisor

Pavlov, Gregory

Abstract

This thesis consists of three chapters on microeconomic problems in multilateral settings. In the first chapter, I use a model with two local bidders and a global bidder in a simultaneous ascending auction. I find that the simultaneous ascending auction does not allocate two heterogeneous objects efficiently. This result holds with and without resale and is independent of the resale mechanism. Then I use a fixed resale mechanism with take-it-or-leave-it offers after the auction to study the effects of resale on allocation efficiency. In cases where the two local bidders win the objects inefficiently, no resale occurs. Therefore, whenever the simultaneous ascending auction overdiffuses the objects to the local bidders, resale cannot correct this inefficiency. However, whenever the simultaneous ascending auction overconcentrates the objects to the global bidder, the global bidder can resell the objects to the local bidders.

The second chapter studies the effects of resale on the efficiency of simultaneous ascending auctions with more general resale mechanisms. In this paper, speculation by the local bidders is allowed in the simultaneous ascending auction. I look for efficient mechanisms in multilateral settings, if they exist given the beliefs, and use these mechanisms as the resale mechanisms after the auction. The simultaneous ascending auction can grossly misallocate the objects by allocating the objects to the speculators but there exist efficient resale mechanisms that can restore full efficiency.

In the final chapter, I use a model with a committee and two project sponsors. The committee members decide which one of the two projects to approve. Each project sponsor can choose to disclose information about his project to select committee members. If a committee member receives information from a sponsor, he can choose to investigate the project at a cost to learn his own payoff from the project. After that, the committee members decide which project to implement. As competition between the projects gets stronger, there is more information disclosure from the sponsors.

Download

Share

COinS