Download or read book Identification and Estimation of Auction Models with a Random Number of Bidders written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is a collection of three chapters on structural analysis of auctions. The first chapter studies nonparametric identification of the distribution of bidder valuations in auctions where valuations are independently and symmetrically distributed, the number of bidders follows a Poisson distribution, and the number is not known to the bidders. I consider both first and second-price sealed bid auctions. If the data set consists of all auctions, including auctions with no bids or only one bid, then I show that data on either the first or second highest bid is sufficient for the model to be identified. If the data set does not include auctions with no bids and only the highest bids are observed, then information on the number of bidders is also needed for identification. In the second chapter, I develop a method for identifying and estimating a dynamic model of auctions like eBay. The market is modeled as an infinite sequence of second-price, sealed bid auctions of a homogenous good. Bidders arrive randomly and, upon arrival, they enter a pool of potential bidders. The actual bidders in an auction are drawn randomly from the pool. Conditional on bidding, a bidder exits if she wins and returns to the pool if she loses. Then bidders in the pool exit with some probability each period. I define and solve for the oblivious equilibrium (Weintraub et al. (2008)). I prove the stochastic stability and the existence of an equilibrium. The equilibrium yields a closed form solution for the bid function in which bidders shade their bids by their continuation values. I demonstrate that the model is identified (modulo the discount factor) from the data of bidder identities and the second highest bid. Based on the identification result, an estimation procedure is developed. In the third chapter I apply the model to a data from a Japanese online auction website. The estimation results suggest that market dynamics are important. The estimate of the valuations obtained when each auction is treated independently is 23% smaller than the estimates obtained from the dynamic model.