Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

No 787: Supply Function Equilibria of Pay-as-Bid Auctions

Pär Holmberg ()
Additional contact information
Pär Holmberg: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Postal: P.O. Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: This paper characterizes the Nash equilibrium in a pay-as-bid (discriminatory), divisible-good, procurement auction. Demand by the auctioneer is uncertain as in the supply function equilibrium model. A closed form expression is derived. Existence of an equilibrium is ensured if the hazard rate of the perfectly inelastic demand is monotonically decreasing and sellers have non-decreasing marginal costs. Multiple equilibria can be ruled out for markets, for which the auctioneer’s demand exceeds suppliers’ capacity with a positive probability. The derived equilibrium can be used to model strategic bidding behaviour in pay-as-bid electricity auctions, such as the balancing mechanism of United Kingdom. Offer curves and mark-ups of the derived equilibrium are compared to results for the SFE of a uniform-price auction.

Keywords: Supply Function Equilibrium; Pay-as-bid Auction; Discriminatory Auction; Divisible

JEL-codes: C62; D43; D44; L11; L13; L94

30 pages, January 29, 2009

Full text files

wp787.pdf PDF-file 

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Elisabeth Gustafsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:12:19.