The Effect of Information on Discriminatory-Price and Uniform-Price Reverse Auction Efficiency: An Experimental Economics Study of the Purchase of Ecosystem Services

Joshua Duke, Kent Messer (), Lori Lynch and Tongzhe Li

Strategic Behavior and the Environment, 2017, vol. 7, issue 1-2, 41-71

Abstract: This study compares the fiscal efficiency of two types of reverse auctions, uniform-price and discriminatory-price, for the purchase of ecosystem services (PES) under different structures of information. Public agencies that conduct reverse PES auctions traditionally provide public information such as the budget and the accepted bids in past rounds. The experimental results from 180 participants suggest that providing varying levels of public information affects both seller behavior and auction efficiency, as measured by the limitation of rents. In this controlled setting, the most efficient auction is found to be a discriminatory-price auction with partial information. This auction produced efficiency gains of 7% of the experimental conservation budget and roughly 25% lower rents than the other auction-information treatments.

Keywords: Tenders; Auction efficiency; Laboratory experiments; Land conservation; Ecosystem service markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D44 Q24 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jnlsbe:102.00000073

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