Sequential Second Price Auctions with Budget Constrained Bidders

Abstract

We study an auction game in which two units of a good are sold via two second price auctions sequentially. Bidders value the units identically and have one of two budget levels, high or low. Bidders do not know each others budgets. We show that this game has a unique symmetric equilibrium in which the probabilistic presence of high budget bidders can make bidders bid more aggressively in the first auction, thus lowering prices in the second. As a result if the possibility of competition from high budget bidders is large, then the equilibrium strategies generate declining prices.