DP1754 The Winner's Curse and the Failure of the Law of Demand

Author(s):	Jeremy I. Bulow, Paul Klemperer
Publication Date:	November 1997
Keyword(s):	Airwaves Auction, Auction Theory, Common Value, Initial Public Offering, IPOs, PCS Auction, Spectrum Auction, Winner's Curse
JEL(s):	D44, G24, G30, L96
Programme Areas:	Financial Economics, Industrial Organization
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1754

We usually assume increases in supply, allocation by rationing, and exclusion of potential buyers will never raise prices. But all of these activities raise the expected price in an important set of cases when common-value assets are sold. Furthermore, when we make the assumptions needed to rule out these ?anomalies? when buyers are symmetric, small asymmetries among buyers necessarily cause the anomalies to reappear.