Auctions, markets, and spectrum ownership: Comment on moreton and spiller

In their empirical study of the Personal Communications Service auctions, Patrick S. Moreton and Pablo T. Spiller have shown that the bidder behavior is consistent with most economists' conceptions of competitive markets. Moreton and Spiller also presented evidence that firms competing in these auctions were able to aggregate licenses, thus offering some vindication for those economic theorists who championed simultaneous, multiple-round auctions. On these issues, their study brings new data to bear on important questions about auction design and public policy. Moreton and Spiller, however, do not examine the costs of the secondary market in reallocating license blocks and its relationship to the "exposure" problem, develop a specific model of government regulation, or consider the effects of block size on bidding behavior. These omissions limit the inferences and conclusions they claim for their study.