Abstract
We study deferred-acceptance (DA) clock auctions offer for single-minded bidders, defined as auctions that make price offers to bidders that grow less attractive over time and let bidders quit at any time, accepting all bidders that are still active when the auction stops. Such auctions are characterized as essentially the only dominant-strategy mechanisms that preserve winners’ unconditional privacy (i.e., reveal minimal information about winners’ values needed to prove that they should be winning). These auctions are also obviously strategy-proof and (weakly) group strategy-proof. If restricted to implement value-maximizing allocations, and/or to use myopic bid rejection rules, DA auctions could only implement allocation rules in which bidders are substitutes. However, DA auctions with heuristic bid reduction rules can also be useful for some environments with complementarities, particularly computationally challenging ones such as the US auction to repurchase television broadcast rights. DA auctions can balance a number of goals, including efficiency, revenue, and a budget constraint.