On the Benefits of Set-Asides
研究了在采购拍卖中禁止特定参与者（如已沉没成本的现有企业）的预留项目，发现维克里拍卖中排除现有企业总能提高收入，但若将现有企业收益纳入卖方目标则不利。
Abstract Set-aside programs that consist in forbidding access to specific participants are commonly used in procurement auctions. We show that when the set of potential participants is composed of an incumbent (whose entry costs are already sunk) and of entrants who show up endogenously (in such a way that their expected rents are fixed by outside options), then it is always beneficial for revenues to exclude the incumbent in the Vickrey auction. This exclusion principle is generalized to dominant-strategy auctions that favor the incumbent in the sense that the incumbent would always get the good when valuing it most. By contrast, set-asides are not desirable if the incumbent’s payoff is included in the seller’s objective in the Vickrey auction, and more generally it is detrimental to exclude a bidder that is not favored.