Dear colleagues,

The Department of Economics cordially invites you to the WU Research Seminar in Economics on Wednesday, December 10^th, with Bernhard Kasberger (https://www.jku.at/institut-fuer-volkswirtschaftslehre/team/kasberger-bernhard/) presenting: "An Equilibrium Model of the First-Price Auction with Strategic Uncertainty: Theory and Empirics".

Abstract: In many first-price auctions, bidders face considerable strategic uncertainty: they cannot perfectly anticipate the other bidders’ bidding behavior. We propose a model in which bidders do not know the entire distribution of opponent bids but only the expected winning bid and lower and upper bounds on the opponents’ bids. We characterize the optimal bidding strategies and prove the existence of a novel equilibrium. Finally, we apply the model to estimate the cost distribution in highway procurement auctions. Our model fits the data better than existing approaches in which the entire distribution of opponent bidders is assumed to be known.

• Date: Wednesday, December 10^th
• Time: 4.30 to 6 pm (CET)
• Location: building D4, entrance A, ground floor, D4.0.127

With best regards,

Harald Oberhofer

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Univ.-Prof. Dr. Harald Oberhofer

Department of Economics 

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Phone: +43/1/31336-4984

Email: harald.oberhofer@wu.ac.at

https://www.wu.ac.at/en/economics/people/oberhofer-h

Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)

Phone: +43/1/7982601-468

Email: harald.oberhofer@wifo.ac.at

http://www.wifo.ac.at/harald_oberhofer