Competitive Information Disclosure to an Auctioneer
New Publication by Cédric Wasser and Stefan Terstiege in: American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, vol. 14, no. 3, August 2022, (pp. 622-64)
Abstract
We analyze how voluntary disclosure of information by bidders affects the outcome of optimally designed auctions. In a single-object auction environment, we assume that before the revenue-maximizing auctioneer designs the auction, bidders noncooperatively choose signal structures that disclose information about their valuations. We show that an equilibrium exists in this two-stage game and that in every equilibrium the object is sold with probability one. Our main result concerns the consequences of information disclosure for the auctioneer's revenue. If in the benchmark without disclosure the object remains unsold with positive probability, then disclosure yields strictly higher revenue in every equilibrium.
Contact:Dr. Cédric Wasser, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Basel