The Biggest Auction Ever: The Sale of the British 3g Telecom Licences
35 Pages Posted: 5 Mar 2002
Date Written: February 2002
Abstract
This paper reviews the part played by economists in organizing the British third-generation mobile-phone licence auction that concluded on 27 April 2000. It raised 22.5 billion pounds ($34 billion or 2.5% of GNP) and was widely described at the time as the biggest auction ever. We discuss the merits of auctions versus 'beauty contests', the aims of the auction, the problems we faced, the auction designs we considered, and the mistakes that were made.
Keywords: Auctions, telecommunications, spectrum auctions, mobile phones, 3G, UMTS, bidding
JEL Classification: D44, L96
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Binmore, Kenneth and Klemperer, Paul, The Biggest Auction Ever: The Sale of the British 3g Telecom Licences (February 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=303205
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