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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26019
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| Title: | On the Informed Seller Problem: Optimal Information Disclosure |
| Authors: | Skreta, Vasiliki |
| Keywords: | mechanism design
informed principal
information disclosure
correlated information
optimal auctions |
| Issue Date: | 5-Apr-2008 |
| Series/Report no.: | EC-08-10 |
| Abstract: | We consider a revenue-maximizing seller who, before proposing a
mechanism to sell her object(s), observes a vector of signals correlated
with buyersívaluations. Each buyer knows only the signal that the
seller observes about him, but not the signals she observes about other
buyers. The seller Örst chooses how to disclose her information and
then chooses a revenue-maximizing mechanism. We allow for very general
disclosure policies, that can be random, public, private, or any mixture
of these possibilities. Through the disclosure of information privately,
the seller can create correlation in buyersítypes, which then
consist of valuations plus beliefs. For the standard independent private
values model, we show that information revelation is irrelevant:
irrespective of the disclosure policy an optimal mechanism for this
informed seller generates expected revenue that is equal to her maximal
revenue under full information disclosure. For more general allocation
environments that allow also for interdependent, for common values, and
for multiple items, disclosure policies may matter, and the best the
seller can do is to disclose no information at all. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26019 |
| Appears in Collections: | Economics Working Papers
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