2010-05-09

Auction Literature (papers)

Original article (link) posted: 23/07/2005

Some imprtant papers in Literature on single-unit auctions.

The following three papers are survey and lecture notes.
1. Milgrom (1989) "Auctions and Bidding: A Primer" J. of Econ. Perspectives, 3
2. Bulow and Roberts (1989) "The Simple Economics of Optimal Auctions" JPE, 97
3. Matthews (1995) "A Technical Primer on Auction Theory 1" Mimeo, Northwestern Univ.

1 is bit old but excellent survey of single-unit auction theory. It is still worth reading.
2 is the first paper which pointed out that auction models can be analyzed by the same way as IO. They initiated graphical analysis in auction theory.
3 is an unpublished lecture note, which is suite for those who have no background.

The next is the most important paper in the literature. The author got the Nobel prize at 1996 because of this work.
4. Vickrey (1961) "Counterspeculation, Auctions and Competitive Sealed Tenders" Journal of Finance, 16

The following paper initiated revolution of auction theory. Everyone interested in auction theory MUST read this!
5. Myerson (1981) "Optimal Auction Design" Mathematics of Operations Research, 6

One of the most important contributions in auction theory after Myerson. It became a classic that you should know.
6. Milfrom and Weber (1982) "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding" Econometrica, 50

Collusions in auctions are exciting topic. You should first read the following.
7. McAfee and McMillan (1992) "Bidding Rings" AER, 82

Recent research on auction has been focusing more and more on experiments and multi-unit auctions. Multi-unit auctions are strongly related to matching problems. To study matching theory, the following textbook is must read.
8. Roth and Sotomayor (1990) "Two-Sided Matching: A Study in Game-Theoretic Modeling and Analysis"

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