[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trf/wpaper/174.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anomalies in Auction Choice Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta
  • Salmon, Timothy C.
Abstract
Ivanova-Stenzel and Salmon (2004a) established some interesting yet puzzling results regarding bidders’ preferences between auction formats. The finding is that bidders strongly prefer the ascending to the first price sealed bid auction on a ceteris paribus basis but they are not willing to pay up to an entry price for entering into an ascending auction instead of a first price that would equalize the profits between the two. While it was found that risk aversion on the part of the bidders could resolve this anomaly the claim that risk aversion drives overbidding in first price auctions is somewhat controversial. In this study we examine two competing explanations for the observed behavior; loss aversion and “clock aversion†, i.e. a dislike for some aspect of the clock based bidding mechanism. We find that neither alternative explanation can account for bidders’ auction choice behavior leaving risk aversion as the only un-falsified hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2006. "Anomalies in Auction Choice Behavior," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 174, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13377/1/174.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2008. "Revenue equivalence revisited," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 171-192, September.
    2. Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel & Timothy C. Salmon, 2004. "Bidder Preferences among Auction Institutions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 223-236, April.
    3. McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions with entry," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 343-347.
    4. R. Isaac & Timothy Salmon & Arthur Zillante, 2005. "An experimental test of alternative models of bidding in ascending auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 33(2), pages 287-313, June.
    5. Harrison, Glenn W, 1989. "Theory and Misbehavior of First-Price Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 749-762, September.
    6. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1281-1292, September.
    7. Matthews, Steven, 1987. "Comparing Auctions for Risk Averse Buyers: A Buyer's Point of View," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 633-646, May.
    8. McAfee, R Preston, 1993. "Mechanism Design by Competing Sellers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(6), pages 1281-1312, November.
    9. Kagel, John H & Levin, Dan, 1993. "Independent Private Value Auctions: Bidder Behaviour in First-, Second- and Third-Price Auctions with Varying Numbers of Bidders," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 868-879, July.
    10. Harstad, Ronald M, 1990. "Alternative Common-Value Auction Procedures: Revenue Comparisons with Free Entry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 421-429, April.
    11. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    12. Smith, Vernon L, 1985. "Experimental Economics: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 264-272, March.
    13. Svetlana Pevnitskaya, 2003. "Endogenous Entry in First-Price Private Value Auctions: the Self-Selection Effect," Working Papers 03-03, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    14. Engelbrecht-Wiggans Richard, 1993. "Optimal Auctions Revisited," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 227-239, April.
    15. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1994. "Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 585-599, June.
    16. Cox, James C & Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1988. "Theory and Individual Behavior of First-Price Auctions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 61-99, March.
    17. Ronald Harstad, 2000. "Dominant Strategy Adoption and Bidders' Experience with Pricing Rules," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(3), pages 261-280, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Radosveta Ivanova‐Stenzel & Timothy C. Salmon, 2008. "Robustness Of Bidder Preferences Among Auction Institutions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(3), pages 355-368, July.
    2. Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel & Timothy C. Salmon, 2004. "Bidder Preferences among Auction Institutions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 223-236, April.
    3. J.M.J. Delnoij & K.J.M. De Jaegher, 2016. "Competing first-price and second-price auctions," Working Papers 16-07, Utrecht School of Economics.
    4. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2008. "Revenue equivalence revisited," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 171-192, September.
    5. Diego Aycinena & Hernán Bejarano & Lucas Rentschler, 2018. "Informed entry in auctions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(1), pages 175-205, March.
    6. Diego Aycinena & Lucas Rentschler, 2018. "Auctions with endogenous participation and an uncertain number of bidders: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 924-949, December.
    7. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2011. "The high/low divide: Self-selection by values in auction choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 200-214, September.
    9. Joyce Delnoij & Kris Jaegher, 2020. "Competing first-price and second-price auctions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(1), pages 183-216, February.
    10. Werner Güth & Radosveta Ivanova–Stenzel & Manfred Königstein & Martin Strobel, 2002. "Bid Functions in Auctions and Fair Division Games: Experimental Evidence," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(4), pages 461-484, November.
    11. Luke Boosey & Philip Brookins & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2020. "Information Disclosure in Contests with Endogenous Entry: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5128-5150, November.
    12. Kirchkamp, O. & Reiss, J.P. & Sadrieh, A., 2008. "A pure variation of risk in private-value auctions," Research Memorandum 050, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    13. Antonio Miralles, 2005. "Auction theory, sequential local service privatization, and the effects of geographical scale economies on effective competition," Working Papers in Economics 132, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    14. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Zou, Liang, 2011. "Premium auctions and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2420-2439.
    15. Flavio Menezes & Paulo Klinger Monteiro, 1996. "A Note on Auctions with Endogenous Participation," Microeconomics 9610003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Oct 1996.
    16. Gabuthy, Yannick & Jacquemet, Nicolas & Marchand, Nadège, 2008. "Does resorting to online dispute resolution promote agreements? Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 259-282, February.
    17. Jeremy Bulow & Paul Klemperer, 2007. "When are Auctions Best?," Economics Papers 2007-W03, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    18. Ji Yong Lee & Rodolfo M. Nayga & Cary Deck & Andreas C. Drichoutis, 2020. "Cognitive Ability and Bidding Behavior in Second Price Auctions: An Experimental Study," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(5), pages 1494-1510, October.
    19. Ronald M. Harstad, 2005. "Rational Participation Revolutionizes Auction Theory," Working Papers 0518, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    20. Peter Cramton & Emel Filiz-Ozbay & Erkut Ozbay & Pacharasut Sujarittanonta, 2012. "Discrete clock auctions: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(2), pages 309-322, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bidder preferences; private values; sealed bid auctions; ascending auctions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.