Relinquishing Riches: Auctions versus Informal Negotiations in Texas Oil and Gas Leasing
比较德克萨斯州油气租赁中非正式谈判与集中拍卖的结果，发现拍卖产生的预付款至少高出55%，产量高出40%，表明在传统非结构化市场中采用正式机制可带来巨大收益。
This paper compares outcomes from informally negotiated oil and gas leases to those awarded via centralized auction. We focus on Texas, where legislative decisions in the early twentieth century assigned thousands of proximate parcels to different mineral allocation mechanisms. We show that during the fracking boom, which began unexpectedly decades later, auctioned leases generated at least 55 percent larger up-front payments and 40 percent more output than negotiated leases did. These results suggest large potential gains from employing centralized, formal mechanisms in markets that traditionally allocate in an unstructured fashion, including the broader $3 trillion market for privately owned minerals.