This thesis studies issues in auctions and contests. The
seller of an object and the organizer of a contest have many
instruments to improve the revenue of the auction or the
efficiency of the contest. The three essays in this dissertation
shed light on these issues.
Chapter 2 investigates how a refund policy affects a buyer's
strategic behavior by characterizing the equilibria of a
second-price auction with a linear refund policy. I find that a
generous refund policy induces buyers to bid aggressively. I also
examine the optimal mechanism design problem when buyers only have
private initial estimates of their valuations and may privately
learn of shocks that affect their
valuations later. When all buyers are
\emph{ex-ante} symmetric, this optimal selling mechanism can be
implemented by a first-price or second-price auction with a refund
policy. Chapter 3 investigates how information revelation rules affect the
existence and the efficiency of equilibria in two-round
elimination contests. I establish that there exists no symmetric
separating equilibrium under the full revelation rule and find
that the non-existence result is very robust. I then characterize
a partially efficient separating equilibrium under the partial
revelation rule when players' valuations are uniformly
distributed. I finally investigate the no revelation rule and find
that it is both most efficient and optimal in maximizing the total
efforts from the contestants. Within my framework, more
information revelation leads to less efficient outcomes.
Chapter 4 analyzes the signaling effect of bidding in a two-round
elimination contest. Before the final round, bids in the
preliminary round are revealed and act as signals of the
contestants' private valuations. Compared to the benchmark model, in which private valuations are
revealed automatically before the final round and thus no
signaling of bids takes place, I find that strong contestants
bluff and weak contestants sandbag. In a separating equilibrium,
bids in the preliminary round fully reveal the contestants'
private valuations. However, this signaling effect makes the
equilibrium bidding strategy in the preliminary round steeper for
high valuations and flatter for low valuations compared to the
benchmark model. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-20 21:34:12.295
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OKQ.1974/5541 |
| Date | 21 April 2010 |
| Creators | Zhang, JUN |
| Contributors | Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.). Theses (Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.)) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner. |
| Relation | Canadian theses |
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