Existence of Equilibria in Auctions with Private Values

Stanford Graduate School of Business Research Paper Series No. 2056

15 Pages Posted: 14 Jul 2010 Last revised: 29 Jul 2010

See all articles by Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Srihari Govindan

University of Rochester

Date Written: February 1, 2010

Abstract

A first-price sealed-bid auction of an item for which bidders are risk-neutral and have privately known values is shown to have an equilibrium in mixed behavioral strategies if the joint distribution of bidders' values has a continuous density on a cubical support. Such an equilibrium has atomless distributions of bids and is not affected by the rule for resolving tied bids.

Keywords: auctions

JEL Classification: C72, D44

Suggested Citation

Wilson, Robert B. and Govindan, Srihari, Existence of Equilibria in Auctions with Private Values (February 1, 2010). Stanford Graduate School of Business Research Paper Series No. 2056 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1639599 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1639599

Robert B. Wilson (Contact Author)

Stanford Graduate School of Business ( email )

655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5015
United States
650-723-8620 (Phone)
650-725-7979 (Fax)

Srihari Govindan

University of Rochester ( email )

Department of Economics
Rochester, NY NY 14627
United States
5852757214 (Phone)

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