Cover -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Origial Title 1 Page -- Preface to the Garland Edition -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Chapter I. Introduction -- 1. Purpose of the Study -- 2. Plan of the Study -- Chapter II. The Institutions of Offshore leasing Sales -- 1. The Role of Government in Offshore Leasing -- 2. Methods of Offshore Exploration and Development -- 3. Joint Ventures and Offshore Bidding -- Chapter III. A Theory of Offshore bidding -- 1. A Review of the Bidding Literature -- 2. An Auction with Identical Bidders -- 3. An Auction with Asymmetric Information -- 4. A Bidding Model with Joint Ventures -- 5. A Summary of Testable Hypotheses -- Chapter IV. An Empirical Study of Offshore Leasing Sales -- 1. The Department of Interior Data -- 2. Controlling for Tract Quality -- 3. The Types of Joint Ventures -- 4. The Relative Success of Pure Bidding Joint Ventures -- 5. A Note on Different Types of Bidders -- 6. The Effects of Eliminating Pure Bidding Joint Ventures -- 7. The 1975 Department of Interior Policy -- Chapter V. Conclusions -- 1. Summary of the Study -- 2. Major Findings of the Study -- 3. Suggestions for Further Research -- Bibliography -- Appendix A: An Empirical Study of Offshore leasing Sales: An Update -- 1. The Revised Data Set -- 2. An Analysis of Pure Bidding Joint Ventures -- 3. Different Types of Bidders -- 4. The Effects of the 1975 Department of Interior Bidding Ban -- Appendix B: A New Look at the Ban on Joint Bidding for Offshore Oil -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Joint Bidding in OCS Sales -- 3. The Information Hypothesis -- 4. A New Look at the Information Hypothesis -- 5. Conclusions.