Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/210770 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper No. 2019-30
Publisher: 
Bank of Canada, Ottawa
Abstract: 
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) resolves insolvent banks using an auction process in which bidding is multidimensional and the rule used to evaluate bids along the different dimensions is proprietary. Uncertainty about the scoring rule leads banks to simultaneously submit multiple differentiated bids. This resolution mechanism typically results in considerable losses for the FDIC-$90 billion during the financial crisis. The objective of this paper is to see whether the mechanism could be improved. To do so, we propose a methodology for analyzing auction environments where bids are ranked according to multiple attributes chosen by bidders, but where there is uncertainty about the scoring rule used to evaluate the different components of the bids. Using this framework, which extends structural estimation techniques for combinatorial auctions, and FDIC data summarizing bids, we back out the underlying preferences of banks for failed institutions. With these we perform counterfactuals in which we eliminate uncertainty and/or multiple bidding. Our findings suggest that the FDIC could reduce the cost of resolution by around 17 percent by announcing the scoring rule before bidding begins.
Subjects: 
Financial institutions
Econometric and statistical methods
JEL: 
C57
D44
G21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





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