• Graduate program
  • Research
  • News
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Climate Change
      • Gender in Society
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
      • Receive updates
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • Conference: Consumer Search and Markets
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • Summer School
    • Climate Change
    • Gender in Society
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Receive updates
  • Alumni
  • Magazine

Hu, A., Offerman, T. and Zou, L. (2018). How risk sharing may enhance efficiency of English auctions Economic Journal, 128(610):1235--1256.


  • Affiliated authors
    Audrey Hu, Theo Offerman
  • Publication year
    2018
  • Journal
    Economic Journal

English auctions are known to be ex post efficient under various circumstances. However, they are inefficient ex ante for risk-averse seller and bidders. Our analysis of the English premium auction (EPA) reveals that, while maintaining ex post efficiency, awarding a premium to the highest two bidders makes the auction more attractive to all risk-averse bidders. This result is remarkably general, as it holds with possible interdependent bidder valuations and affiliated types. When bidders exhibit independent types, the EPA can also benefit a risk-averse seller and therefore strictly improve ex ante, or interim, Pareto efficiency of the English auction.