Essays on Information Disclosure in Auctions and Contests [Elektronische Ressource] / Thomas Rieck

Thomas Rieck

Informations

• Publié par: rheinische_friedrich-wilhelms-universitat_bonn
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 13
• Langue: English

Extrait

Essays on Information Disclosure
in Auctions and Contests
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors
der Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften
durch die
Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakult at
der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit at
Bonn
vorgelegt von
Thomas Rieck
aus Luneburg
Bonn 2011Dekan: Prof. Dr. Klaus Sandmann
Erstreferent: Prof. Dr. Benny Moldovanu
Zweitreferent: Prof. Dr. Dezs o Szalay
Tag der mundlic hen Prufung: 11.03.2011
Diese Dissertation ist auf dem Hochschulschriftenserver der ULB Bonn
(http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/diss online) elektronisch publiziert.Essays on Information Disclosure
in Auctions and Contests
Thomas Rieckfur Mama und PapaAcknowledgements
The Bonn Graduate School of Economics provided a very inspiring research environment.
First of all, my supervisor Benny Moldovanu sharpend my view on relevant economic
questions and models. His insights and opinions were very valuable for me { spending half
an hour with him was worth a multiple. Dezs o Szalay has kindly agreed to be the second
supervisor of this thesis. Thank you!
Most likely, I wouldn’t have pursued a PhD in Economics if I hadn’t met Karl-Martin
Ehrhart. His lectures on game theory raised my interest in economic theory and especially
in auctions. The second chapter of this thesis is an extension of my diploma thesis, written
under his supervision. Furthermore, he encouraged me to apply for the BGSE.
The idea to the rst chapter originated from a term paper I wrote in a topics course by
Anja Sch ottner { thanks for selecting this literature and encouraging me to extend the
term paper to a full paper. Some other people took the time to read one or more chapters
of this thesis: Alex Gershkov, Matthias Kr akel, Konrad Mierendor , Martin Ranger, Nora
Szech and Almuth Zimmermann. Finally, there are many more people who gave comments
at seminars, conferences and other occasions. Thank you all.
Writing this thesis was made much easier due to the professional environment provided
by the BGSE. Particularly, I thank Urs Schweizer for his personal dedication, making the
BGSE what it is now. Silke Kinzig takes care of everything that needs to be taken care
of. My fellow students created a very friendly atmosphere { I very much enjoyed our joint
time in the o ce or at lunch.
Outside of the BGSE, I thank those people that made Bonn a nice place to live at: my
friends from the CdE in- and outside of Bonn, the table tennis players of TV Geislar and
the musicians of the Camerata musicale. You made me feel at home.
It was comforting to have the love of my whole family in my back. During all my life, my
parents gave me unconditional support, whatever I did { I can’t thank them enough for
truly trusting me and always giving me all freedom I could ever wish for. Finally, I thank
Almuth for everything.Contents
Introduction 1
1 Information Disclosure in Innovation Contests 7
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 The Model and Equilibrium Derivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.1 Second Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.2 First Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3 Comparison with No Information Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.1 Firms’ Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.2 Designer’s Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4 Endogenous Information Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.1 Ex Ante Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.2 Intermediate Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5 Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.1 Second Innovation as Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.2 n Firms and m Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.A Appendix: Proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2 Ascending Combinatorial Scoring Auctions 49
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.2 The Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3 Ascending Proxy Scoring Auctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.4 Secret Scoring Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.4.1 General Scoring Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.4.2 Additive Scoring Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.A Appendix: Proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3 Signaling in First-Price Auctions 69
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69ii Contents
3.2 Signaling in a Discrete Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.3 in a Continuous Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.4 Signaling via Uniform Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.A Appendix: Equilibrium of a Discrete Asymmetric Auction . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.B Appendix: Proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Bibliography 100