Special Lecture: Collusion in Auctions

Auctions rely on competition among bidders to generate revenue for sellers. But in many real-world settings, bidders collude, working together to keep prices low. This raises a basic question: in the face of collusion, which auction should the seller choose? In this talk, I will present original work from my senior thesis addressing this question. Through analysis of some simple examples, we will arrive at the central lesson, which is that the strength of competition from non-colluding bidders plays a key role in determining which auction format is more favorable to the seller.