226 Sequential Sales
though prices are expected to decline in the future, his greater aversion to risk
offsets the incentive to wait for a random future price, which is lower on aver-
age. But since we typically expect risk aversion to decrease with wealth, this
does not seem like a particularly compelling explanation of declining prices in
sequential auctions.
Jeitschko (1999) offers a somewhat different explanation. He considers sit-
uations in which the number of units to be sold is not known to the bidders
beforehand. For instance, suppose that the number of units to be sold is at most
two but at the time of the first auction bidders are unsure whether or not a second
unit will be sold at all. This means that the expected profits from the now uncer ...