Anglo-Dutch premium auctions in eighteenth-century Amsterdam

This paper studies Anglo-Dutch premium auctions used in the secondary market for financial securities in eighteenth-century Amsterdam, Europe's financial capital at the time. An Anglo-Dutch premium auction consists of an English auction followed by a Dutch auction, with a cash premium paid to the winner of the first round regardless of the second-round outcome. To rationalize the introduction and continued use of this auction format, we need to determine whether bidding behavior was consistent with equilibrium play. We model this auction format theoretically, and show that the likelihood of a... Mehr ...