Hybrid Auctions II: Experimental Evidence

In this paper we report the results of an experiment designed to examine the properties of a hybrid auction - a Dutch-Vickrey auction, that combines a sealed bid …rst-price auction with a sealed bid second-price auction. This auction mechanism shares some important features with that used in the sale of the companies constituted through the partial division of the Telebras System - the government-owned Telecom holding in Brazil. We designed an experiment where individuals participate in a sequence of independent …rst-price auctions followed by a sequence of hybrid auctions. Several conclusions emerged from this experimental study. First, ex-post e¢ciency was achieved overwhelmingly by the hybrid auctions. Secondly, although overbidding (with respect to the risk-neutral Bayesian Nash equilibrium) was a regular feature of participants’ bidding behavior in the …rst-price auctions — as it is commonly reported in most experimental studies of …rst-price auctions, it was less frequent in the hybrid auctions. By calibrating the results to allow for risk-averse behavior we were able to account for a signi…cant part of the overbidding. Finally, we compared the revenue generated by the hybrid auction with that generated by a standard …rst-price sealed bid auction and the results were ambiguous.

WTO - Market and non market economies: the hybrid case of Chine

This article will discuss the systemic challenges of integrating hybrid economies, and their NME features, into the WTO. It will analyze how the Multilateral Trading System has dealt differently with the issue with the issue during the GATT and the WTO eras. It will then discuss the relationship between NMEs and the principles and rules of the multilateral trading system