An Experimental Examination of Auction Mechanisms for Discrete Public Goods

[Introduction] In previous research (Ferejohn et al., 1976, 1977, 1979a, 1979b) we have addressed the problem of designing well-behaved choice mechanisms for simultaneously purchasing more than one discrete public good from among several independent alternatives. A "discrete public good" is a public good which is provided in a single, fixed quantity. The initial example that motivated our work (see Ferejohn et al., 1976) was the selection of roughly 30 television programs of fixed duration and content from more than 100 programs that were proposed to public television stations. Several other examples are equally germane, such as the selection of research proposals to be supported by a foundation or the decision by partners in a joint oil exploration venture as to the tracts in a field on which to bid. In practice, most collective decisions are posed as a choice among discrete alternatives to simplify the selection process. See Ferejohn et al. (1979b) for more examples.