Symmetric auctions with resale

In this paper, we consider resale in efficient auctions. The potential gains from trade arise from a delay in resale which reduces the bidders’ values. We consider two information states during resale: (a) complete information where all the bids are revealed and (b) incomplete information where no bids are revealed. Under complete information, we establish revenue equivalence between the first- and second-price auction for a family of trade rules where the market power is distributed between the reseller and buyer. We also show that, if all the market power lies with the reseller (resp., buyer), it is optimal (resp., not) to reveal information.