本文选自《经济学人》10月17日刊文章。今年诺贝尔经济学奖颁给了拍卖理论的最新研究和在实践中的应用。目前存在4种拍卖方式，即英式拍卖、荷式拍卖，第一价格拍卖、第二价格拍卖，4种拍卖方式都是价高者得。英式拍卖是最常见的拍卖方式，价格由低到高竞拍，在竞拍过程中容易形成过度竞争，从而难逃“赢家诅咒”，即赢家付出的价格往往高于竞拍品的实际价值。荷式拍卖发源于荷兰，是价格由高到低竞拍，这种方式最早用于郁金香和鱼类产品的竞拍，可以迅速完成交易，而且竞拍者出价往往比较保守。第一价格拍卖和第二价格拍卖都属于秘密拍卖，分别是获胜者以最高价、或是第二高价购买竞拍品。今年的诺贝尔经济学奖的工作是发展了竞拍理论，并成功的将该理论用于美国通讯频谱的竞拍。政府会将同一通讯频率在不同地区、同一地区又有不同频率进行拍卖，根据他们的竞拍理论，政府会要求竞拍者对自己想要竞拍的地区的想要竞拍的频率进行报价，每一轮报价后，会公布单个频率在单个地区的最高报价，竞拍者根据公布的信息做出竞拍调整，这样既保证了公共利益，又避免了“赢家诅咒”。1994年首次使用该理论时，就为美国政府赚得了6.17亿美元。
选文精讲
The Nobel prize in economics rewards advances in auction theory
For the third time since 2007, it goes to designers of market mechanisms这是自2007年以来第三次（诺奖授予）市场机制的设计者IN 1991 ALVIN ROTH, who in 2012 would share the Nobel prize for economics, was asked how the discipline might change over the century to come. “In the long term”, he wrote, “the real test of our success will be not merely how well we understand the general principles which govern economic interactions, but how well we can bring this knowledge to bear on practical questions of microeconomic engineering.” Sweden’s Royal Academy of Science seems to agree. On October 12th it gave this year’s Nobel prize to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, both of Stanford University, for their work on auction theory and design. Their work epitomises economics as engineering.
1991年，阿尔文·罗斯（他是2012年诺贝尔经济学奖得主之一）被问到，这门学科在21世纪将会发生怎样的变化。他写道，“从长期来看，我们的成功不仅取决于我们对支配经济互动的一般原则的理解有多好，更是取决于我们是否能很好的将这些知识运用到微观经济工程的实际问题上。”瑞典皇家科学院似乎也同意这种说法。10月12日，今年的诺贝尔奖授予了斯坦福大学的Paul Milgrom和Robert Wilson，以表彰他们在拍卖理论和设计方面的成就，他们将经济学概括为工程学。Auctions are an ancient mechanism for selling valuable commodities, from fine art to a fisherman’s catch. A few, simple forms of auction have been dominant over time. In an English auction, ascending bids are made until a winner remains; in the Dutch variety, a high opening price is set and is reduced until a bidder is found. Yet as their use has expanded, auctions have become more complex, and economists have taken a keener interest. In the 1960s William Vickrey, who shared the Nobel in 1996, developed what became known as auction theory. He assessed bidders’ optimal strategies and studied the revenue and efficiency properties of different auction formats. But Vickrey concentrated on a relatively narrow set of cases, in which each bidder’s valuation of the good being sold is unrelated to those of the other bidders. In practice, however, what one person believes an auctioned item to be worth often depends on the valuations of other bidders or the seller. Each may have private information about its value, clues to which are revealed in the course of the auction.
拍卖是一种出售贵重商品的古老机制，从艺术品到渔民的捕获物（都可以用拍卖的形式进行交易）。随着时间的推移，一些简单的拍卖形式一直占据主导地位。在英式拍卖中，竞拍的价格会不断上涨，直到出现一个竞拍的赢家；在荷式拍卖中，（拍卖品的）开价很高，然后不断降低价格，直到出现一个中标人。然而，随着使用范围的扩大，拍卖变得更加复杂，经济学家对此也产生了更浓厚的兴趣。上世纪60年代，威廉·维克瑞（他是1996年诺贝尔奖得主）提出了后来被称为拍卖理论的理论。他评估了竞标者的最优策略，并研究了不同拍卖形式的收益和效率属性。但维克瑞只关注了相对狭窄的一组案例，在这些案例中，每个竞标者对所售商品的估价与其他竞标者无关。然而，实际上，一个人对拍卖物品的估价往往取决于其他竞标者或卖家的估价。每个人对竞拍品的价值都有个人的信息，这些线索会在拍卖过程中显露出来。
