Abstract:Both bidders’potential market power and multiple equilibrium in auction games are important problems in designing auctions for divisible goods. This paper puts the two problems above into one uniform framework to investigate the auction design in divisible goods market. We capture the market power of the large bidder by introducing uncertainty in the residual supply of the buyers when bidding,refine the potential continuum multiple equilibrium,and then obtain the unique and symmetrical linear equilibrium bidding functions based on the uniform price,discriminatory price and Vickrey auction formats,respectively. We rank these three formats in terms of the criteria employed in the practical design of the markets for divisible goods,such as expected revenue,stabilizing prices,and encouraging bidder participation. The main conclusions are:First,the expected revenue under the discriminatory price auction is more than that under the Vickrey auction,which is more than that under the uniform price auction,but all three auctions would not obtain total market surplus; Second,the discriminatory price auction gives rise to the lowest stop-out price volatility,the equilibrium price based on the Vickrey auction has a higher volatility,and the price volatility under the uniform price auction is the highest among the three formats; Third,the uniform price auction would encourage more entries than other auctions,the Vickrey auction encourages less,and participation under the discriminatory price auction is the least,but all three formats would encourage more entries than Pareto efficient market size. Our model accommodates both small and large markets,as well as different risk preferences of the sellers.The results have important implications for the auctioneers designing the auction format according to different objectives.