Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Knowledge of Rivals' Types and Its Effect on Auctions

本博士论文的研究目的是通过实验来检验标准拍卖中投标人关于其竞争对手类型的信息的影响。拍卖被广泛用于商品和服务交易，从艺术品和农产品到政府资产，如PCS频谱权、木材和矿产开采权。虽然现有的研究拍卖取得了很大的进步，我们的理解仍然远远不够。特别是，投标人对竞争对手的了解如何影响他们的投标行为和各种拍卖的表现还没有得到很好的理解。现有的工作假设投标人没有关于其竞争对手的信息或全部信息。然而，在实践中，投标人对其竞争对手的了解往往是不对称的。例如，在国内公司和外国公司竞争的采购拍卖中，国内公司可能比外国竞争对手更了解其国内竞争对手的技术能力。目前的项目将有助于我们了解投标人的信息对他们的行为和标准拍卖的性能的影响。投标人对他们的竞争对手的不对称知识的事项，它可能会影响投标人的行为和替代拍卖形式的性能。我的论文的第一章，与Yeon-Koo Che共同撰写，也建立了一些假设，关于如何均衡投标行为和收入绩效的一个给定的拍卖会改变投标人了解更多关于他们的竞争对手的类型。 检验我们的假设需要控制投标人的信息流，如果依赖于使用二手数据的传统经验方法，这几乎是不可能的。实验室实验是理想的，因为实验设计者可以精确地控制信息流的方式，它是在理论建模。我们计划进行6次实验，每次实验将邀请32名受试者参加一系列拍卖游戏。本研究将采用一些创新的技术，以提高实证识别的主体的投标行为。虽然实验的主要目的是检验理论章节中的具体假设，但在这个过程中，它将有助于检验基本的纳什假设，使其受到更多的比较静态限制。此外，该测试有望揭示投标人的风险规避在拍卖实验中的作用。

The purpose of the doctoral dissertation project is to experimentally test the effect of bidders' information of their rivals' types in standard auctions. Auctions are used widely for trading goods and services, ranging from artwork and agricultural products to government assets such as PCS spectrum rights, timber and mineral harvesting rights. While the existing studies on auctions have made great strides, our understanding remains far from complete. In particular, how bidders' knowledge of their rivals affects their bidding behavior and the performance of various auctions is not well understood. The existing work assumes that bidders have either no information or full information about their rivals. In practice, however, bidders' knowledge about their rivals tends to be asymmetric. For instance, in a procurement auction contested by domestic firms and foreign firms, domestic firms are likely to be better informed about the technical capabilities of their domestic rivals than those of their foreign rivals. The current project will contribute to our understanding of the impact bidders' information has on their behavior and on the performance of standard auctions.Bidders' asymmetric knowledge about their rivals matters and it may affect both the bidders' behavior and the performance of alternative auction forms. The first chapter of my dissertation, written jointly with Yeon-Koo Che, has also established a number of hypotheses regarding how the equilibrium bidding behavior and the revenue performance of a given auction will change as bidders learn more about their rivals' types. Testing our hypotheses requires controlling the information flow of the bidders, which would be virtually impossible if one relied on the traditional empirical method employing secondary data. A lab experiment is ideal since the experiment designer can control the information flow precisely the way it is modelled in the theory. We plan to conduct 6 sessions of lab experiments, each of which will invite 32 subjects to participate in a series of auction games. The research will feature some innovative techniques to improve the empirical identification of the subjects' bidding behavior. While the main purpose of the experiment will be to test the specific hypotheses of the theory chapter, it will in the process contribute to the testing of the underlying Nash hypothesis, by subjecting it to more comparative static restrictions. Further, the test is expected to reveal the role bidders' risk aversion plays in auction experiments.