The Students’ Panel Discussion on “Improvements to the Auction Theory and the Invention of New Auction Formats” was organised by the Christ Economics Association (CEA) on the 22nd October 2020. The topic of the discussion was derived from the work of Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson, the awardees of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The discussion was presided over by Professor Emmanual P J, the Head of Department of Economics and other esteemed faculty members of the Department of Economics.
Parvathy Sailesh was the moderator who introduced the panelists of the discussion. She enlightened the audience about the relevance of the discussion – how auctions attribute values to an object and how the Auction Theory amplified the interest in this field and how commodities are given values. Ms Sailesh also stressed on how the panel discussion aimed to focus on the future of auctions and how they contribute to the field of economics.
The panelists of the evening were final years Economics Honours students – Darshana A, S. Sriram, Ritikaa Khanna, Nikilesh Anusha N and Kanishka Chakraborty, who focussed on different dimensions of the topic.
The first panelist was Darshana A from 5ECOH B who introduced the concept of auctions, its basics features and evolution. She discussed the broad classification auctions – Trade, Forward auction, Reverse auction, and Double auction, briefed about the history of auctions, introduced the different types of auctions like the English, Japanese, Dutch and Candle auctions and concludingly covered the public and private auctions.
The second panelist was S. Sriram from 5ECOH A who focussed on the diverse perspectives on auction markets. He covered the mechanism of the auctions from the perspectives of bidders, talked about Myerson optimal auction, standard type auctions, revenue equalization, and finally discussed the drawbacks and concluded how information is the crux of the game.
The next panelist of the evening was Ritikaa Khanna from 5ECOH A who elaborated upon the research setting of the work of the awardees and introduced the foundations of their ideas. She discussed the various models such as Electromagnetic Spectrum auction and the concept of Winner’s Curse. She concluded with a short story to explain the exposure problem and licenses and the sample of South Korea’s spectrum auction.
The fourth panelist was Nikilesh Anusha N from 5ECOH B who threw light on the recent development to the Auctions theory, including the new formats. His discussion was focussed on the breakthrough of Milgrom and Wilson, the latest improvements in the form of different auction formats, combinatorial clock auction and the incentive auctions, and the significant applications of the theory.
The final panelist was Kanishka Chakraborty from 5ECOH B. He focused the applications and future of the Auction Theory and covered significant topics as the Venezuela oil reserve auction, the auction efficiency, the stakeholders’ considerations and discussed the ideas of Keynes’ government intervention and Buchanan’s free market through the example of telecom industry. He concluded his talk with the recent and future trends in auctions in the form of internet auction.
The moderator, Parvathy Sailesh, spoke on how the discoveries and new auction formats would benefit sellers and taxpayers alike and reiterated the need to improve the models by taking into consideration more stakeholders. The floor was then open for questions. Through the question and answer segment, the wheels of thought and discussion turned with several interesting questions arising from the audience and the educative answers from the panelists.
The Students’ Panel Discussion culminated with the vote of thanks given by the Secretary of the CEA, Gurmeet, on behalf of the entire CEA and the Department of Economics.