I've read about studies on auctions that implied the following to be a system that's beneficial to the seller and at the same time might fix the problem Mike depicts and many of us suffer.
Here is how it works: everybody can make 1 bid before the deadline. The highest bid wins the auction. The price he pays is equal to the second highest bid.
Example: Player A's bid: $1Tn (=highest), second highest bid, made by player B: $900Bn. Player A wins the auction. He pays $900Bn for the asset.
Even though this might seem strange at first, it is actually a very fair system and here's why. Every player can do his homework and determine a maximum value for the given asset. Ie if the price were any higher, the investment would be a loss. The bid price = the breakeven price.
Now, why shouldn't the seller receive this price? 2 reasons: the first being that there is no profit in it for the buyer; the second being that in a regular auction system, he would only get a fraction more than what the second highest player would bid anyway. Because as of that moment, nobody would outbid player A anymore.
So, why change the system? More players would participate in auctions, bids would go higher, sellers would receive more, buyers wouldn't have to waste so much time on acquiring assets this way.
Why not change towards this system? Most assets valuation correlates to players qualifications. Ie highly qualified players would probably acquire all assets making them even stronger, allowing them to win even more auctions in the future...
(and obviously, probably many other reasons can be found) |