Abstract
This paper analyzes the way an auctioneer can arrange a series of sequential English auctions to maximize the total revenue. We consider the case in which heterogeneous common value objects are sold in these auctions, and each bidder has a budget constraint that allows it to buy at most one object. In such a setting, bidders need to determine how much to bid in each auction. Furthermore, bidders? strategies change if the agenda (i.e., the order in which the objects are auctioned) changes. Consequently, the total revenue from the series of auctions can be changed by changing the agenda. Given this, the auctioneer clearly wants to determine the optimal agenda (i.e., the one that maximizes the total revenue). To this end, we first determine the equilibrium bidding strategies for players that know their own budget constraint, but have incomplete information about the others? constraints. On the basis of these strategies, we determine the total revenue for different agendas.