| I address some issues relating to auctions and information markets in the following chapters.; Chapter I. Merging auction houses. We focus on the incentives for market concentration of auction houses. Would sellers and buyers be better off if two separate auction houses merged? We model each auction house as having a separate clientele of buyers and sellers. We find that integration increases efficiency gains. But how are these efficiency gains shared between sellers and buyers? We find that the sellers' expected revenue increases, but that buyers' surplus decreases upon the merger if no buyers are lost. When the buyer's decision to participate is endogenous, it is possible upon a merger that so many buyers are lost, the sellers are actually worse off. Without sharing between winners and losers, the merger may not be possible.; Chapter II. An experimental study of first-, second- and third-price sealed bid auctions. What is the effect of increasing the number of bidders under different sealed-bid auction formats on bids? Conforming to theory, we find that bidders bid higher in first-price auctions and there is no effect on second-price auctions as the number of bidders increases. Contrary to theory, we find that bidders do not bid lower in third-price auctions.; Do males and females bid differently in sealed-bid auctions? In all auction formats, we find significant gender differences in bidders' behavior, and these differences cannot be entirely explained by risk-aversion.; Does risk-aversion explain deviations from equilibrium predictions for risk-neutral bidders? Testing for risk-aversion through variations in private values, we found that risk-aversion cannot give a coherent explanation of deviations from equilibrium bidding.; Chapter III. Knowledge transfer and the Internet. What are the effects of the Internet on knowledge transfer? We model trade as a random matching process between buyers and sellers allowing for knowledge transfer to facilitate imitation and innovation. We find that an increase in skills or a reduction in search frictions raises the flow probability of technology transfer. Hence, resource reallocation to improve education in the use of information technologies and expanding communications infrastructure can foster growth. |
