Score auctions are used in procurement to incorporate other attributes beyond price. We establish nonparametric econometric identification of bidders' pseudotypes (a measure of bidder's private cost), when bids are evaluated using a preannounced quasi-linear score, calculated on the basis of the submitted levels of the attributes. Hence, we extend the standard nonparametric method for independent private costs sealed-bid, first price auctions, to multi-attribute quasi-linear score auctions. We illustrate the result with an application to scoring bid data.

Business groups are the predominant organizational structure in modern Chile. This article tests the long-standing hypothesis that the privatization reform implemented by the “Chicago Boys” during the Pinochet regime facilitated the creation of new groups and hence the renovation of the country’s elites. Using new data we find that firms sold during this privatization later became part of new business groups, process aided by an economic crisis that debilitated traditional elites. Moreover, some firms were bought by Pinochet’s allies and were later used as providers of capital within groups. We conclude that privatizations can empower outsiders to replace business elites.

I am extremely grateful to Dirk Jenter, Francisco Pérez-González, and John Beshears for guidance and discussions on this paper. I would like to give special thanks to Rajkamal Iyer (Editor) and an anonymous referee for comments that substantially improved the paper. I also thank Shai Bernstein, William Cong, Yesol Huh, Sebastian Infante, Doron Israeli, Arthur Korteweg, Iván Marinovic, Felipe Varas, and the seminar participants at the Joint Finance/Accounting Stanford student seminar for helpful discussions and comments. I acknowledge funding from Proyecto Fondecyt Iniciación #11160874. All errors are my own.

We are grateful to an anonymous referee for his helpful comments and John A. Doukas, the EFM editor. We also thank Jonathan Berk, Matias Braun, Pierre Collin-Dufresne, Gonzalo Cortazar, Dwight Jaffee, Peng (Peter) Liu, Mara Madaleno and seminar participants at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Universidad de Chile (CEA), UC Berkeley (brown bag seminar series), the 2007 Real Options Conference, the 2007 SECHI Meeting and the 2009 EFM Symposium on Risk Management in Financial Institutions. Casassus acknowledges financial support from FONDECYT (grant 1070688). Most of the work was completed while Casassus was at the Escuela de Ingenieria de la Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Correspondence: Jaime Casassus.