SEQUENTIALLY OPTIMAL AUCTIONS

In auctions where a seller can post a reserve price but if the object fails to sell cannot commit never to attempt to resell it, revenue equ ivalence between repeated first price and second price auctions withou t commitment results. When the time between auctions goes to zero, sel ler expected revenues converge to those of a static auction with no re serve price. With many bidders, the seller equilibrium reserve price a pproaches the reserve price in an optimal static auction. An auction i n which the simple equilibrium reserve price policy of the seller mirr ors a policy commonly used by many auctioneers is computed. (C) 1997 A cademic Press.