Analysis of complex auction mechanisms.

Summary Contrary to most theoretical developments, many economic situations involve the simultaneous disposal of several objects of heterogeneous nature. Therefore, when agents can bid on isolated objects and combinations of objects, the auction is said to be complex. The first part of this paper presents a synthesis of the literature generated by the allocation of the American wireless network by the fcc, when thousands of licenses were up for sale. It presents the generalized Vickrey mechanism, the mechanism retained by the fcc and alternative procedures. The second part studies the form of the optimal mechanisms under the assumption of private information of dimension one. We present (chapter 4) the optimal auction for the allocation of two heterogeneous and interdependent objects. Chapter 5 analyzes the awarding procedures of public contracts when SMEs, bidding on specific lots, compete with general contractors, bidding on the whole contract. Rules for the implementation of the optimal procedure are presented and compared with those obtained when smes are allowed to group together in consortia. We extend the analysis by assuming (chapter 6) that firms can reduce their costs by an unobservable effort. We demonstrate the optimality of preference clauses. The last part assumes that agents have multidimensional private information. Chapter 7 presents the form of the two-dimensional optimal auction and demonstrates the necessarily allocatively inefficient nature of the procedure. Chapter 8 analyzes the problem of transferring control rights of a firm when the buyers value both the dividends and the private profits they will be able to obtain from the control activity. We then demonstrate the suboptimality of the classic share structure for the seller.