Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/71900 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Bonn Econ Discussion Papers No. 18/2010
Publisher: 
University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE), Bonn
Abstract: 
It is commonly assumed in private value auctions that bidders have no information about the realization of the other bidders' valuations. Nevertheless, an informative public signal about the realization may be released by a bidder while he learns his own valuation. Using a simple discrete asymmetric first-price auction setting, we show that a bidder may indeed benefit from the presence of an informative signal about his own valuation. We characterize the optimal signal and show that a signal is not beneficial if it is too precise. The latter result carries over to a general continuous asymmetric first-price auction model. Finally, we use a specific signaling structure with uniform distributions to show that signaling need not be beneficial for any precision of the signal.
Subjects: 
Asymmetric auction
first-price auction
signaling
JEL: 
D44
D82
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
568.28 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.