In the textbook hedging problem, the firm behaves much like a risk-averse investor and acquires a financial portfolio to reduce cash flow variability. For a firm in competition, this paradigm is misleading. Simply put, the correlation between the cash flows of a firm’s financial portfolio and its operating profits depends on whether the firm undertakes a risky project.
The ability to hedge makes firms compete more aggressively because, by entering into a hedging position, bidders run the risk of being over hedged if they lose. This effect can be strong enough such that the bid could even exceed that which obtains when contracts can be written contingent on winning the auction. This effect illustrates how important spillovers are between projects: Firms’ investment in projects that they do not compete over is affected.
Furthermore, the ability to hedge could make some industry outcomes more rather than less variable. For example, the variance of the bids is increased. This is because a bidder with a larger private value for the project