Track 17
Auctions & Bargaining
Price discovery through competition: auction formats, optimal reserves, position auctions for advertising, the winner's curse, and Nash bargaining.
Topics
Auctions: Private & Common Values
Formats, reserves, revenue equivalence, and the winner's curse
Compare auction formats, compute optimal reserve prices from the virtual value condition, understand the winner's curse in common-value settings, and learn rational bid shading.
Position Auctions & Ad Markets
GSP vs VCG and the keyword bidding game
Analyze the Generalized Second-Price auction used by Google and other search engines, compare GSP equilibria to VCG outcomes, and explore how click-through rates determine bid strategies.
Negotiating a Deal
Nash bargaining and alternating offers
Solve for Nash bargaining outcomes, simulate Rubinstein alternating-offers games, and discover why private information makes efficient trade impossible.