The Undercover Economist book mentions these. They're honest but they're publicly embarrassing for governments in auctions with few bidders, because sometimes there would only be two bidders, one bidding $100k and one bidding $4, so people were wondering why the winner who was bidding $100k was only paying $4 for a license. [0]
The book goes on to describe the UK 3G Telecom license auction[1] and explain how it went much better. In summary it was more like a typical auction but instead of bidders proposing bids, the price went up gradually and the the bidders did something like stay as the price went up or leave when the price went too high for them.
The book goes on to describe the UK 3G Telecom license auction[1] and explain how it went much better. In summary it was more like a typical auction but instead of bidders proposing bids, the price went up gradually and the the bidders did something like stay as the price went up or leave when the price went too high for them.
[0]: https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2022/10/31/when-an-auctio... [1]: https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/papers/2002/w4/biggest29...