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		| Toshihiro  Tsuchihashi | 
	
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		| ''Mission impossible: Buy price fails to signal information'' | 
	
		| ( 2019, Vol. 39 No.1 ) | 
	
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		| According to the well-known linkage principle, a seller benefits from revealing information relevant to bidders' payoffs in auctions. For this purpose, the seller needs a signaling device to credibly transmit her private information to bidders. One natural candidate for such a device is a buy price. In this paper, I investigate the theoretical possibility that the buy price may credibly signal the seller's private information in second-price auctions. However, I find that the buy price cannot serve as a signaling device. There exists no separating equilibrium such that a buy price signals the seller's private information. | 
	
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		| Keywords: buy price; signaling; second price auction | 
	
		| JEL: D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty: General 
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		| | Manuscript Received : Jan 28 2019 |  | Manuscript Accepted : Mar 16 2019 | 
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