CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS AND INFORMATION REVELATION IN PROCUREMENT AUCTIONS

We utilize laboratory experiments to study behavior in sequential procurement auctions where winning an auction round increases a bidder's future costs. The game admits competitive as well as bid‐rotation style collusive equilibria. We find that (a) bidders show some propensity to account for the opportunity cost of winning an auction, but underestimate its magnitude; (b) revealing all bids (instead of only the winning bid) after each round leads to dramatically higher procurement costs. The rise in procurement costs is accompanied by an increase in very high (extreme) bids, a fraction of which appear to be collusive in nature. (JEL C91, D44, L44)     

DESIGNED TO FAIL: THE MEDICARE AUCTION FOR DURABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

We examine the theoretical properties of the auction for Medicare Durable Medical Equipment. Two unique features of the Medicare auction are (1) winners are paid the median winning bid and (2) bids are nonbinding. We show that median pricing results in allocation inefficiencies as some high‐cost firms potentially displace low‐cost firms as winners. Further, the auction may leave demand unfulfilled as some winners refuse to supply because the price is set below their cost. We also introduce a model of nonbinding bids that establishes the rationality of a lowball bid strategy employed by many bidders in the actual Medicare auctions and recently replicated in Caltech experiments. We contrast the median‐price auction with the standard clearing‐price auction where each firm bids true costs as a dominant strategy, resulting in competitive equilibrium prices and full efficiency. (JEL D44, I11, H57)     

A COMMENT ON COMPETITION AND BIDDING BEHAVIOR: SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE RICE MARKET

In testing agents' responses to increased competition in sealed-bid first price-rice auctions, Meyer [1988] makes two erroneous assumptions: (1) that agents know ex ante the number of bidders in the auction, and (2) that firms forecast resale prices with information unavailable at the time of the auction. These two misspecifications are identified and corrected. A probit model provides a forecast of market competition, and agents' bids are modeled as a function of expected competition and factors affecting the value of each rice lot. The bias toward zero in Meyer's estimated coefficient on market competition is reduced.     

COLLUSION FACILITATING AND COLLUSION BREAKING POWER OF SIMULTANEOUS ASCENDING AND DESCENDING PRICE AUCTIONS

This article demonstrates that a robust tacit collusion evolves quickly in a "collusion incubator" environment but is destroyed by the simultaneous descending price auction. Theories of collusion-producing behavior, along with the detail of the states on which strategies are conditioned, lead to a deeper understanding of how tacit collusion evolves and its necessary conditions. These theories explain how the descending price auction destroys the collusion. The experiments proceed by conducting simultaneous ascending price auctions in the collusion incubator. Then, once the tacit collusion developed, changing to the descending auction. The change moved prices from collusive levels to near-competitive levels. ( JEL C71, C92, D43, D44)     

IN SEARCH OF THE WINNER'S CURSE

Earlier papers on the winner's curse have provided theoretical arguments that winning bidders in an auction will incur ex post losses even when all bidders use reasonable ex ante bidding strategies. This paper demonstrates that these arguments are erroneous: optimal ex ante bidders will never suffer from a winner's curse in an auction where only the winning bid is announced; furthermore, such bidders will on the average not suffer from a winner's curse in an auction where all bids are announced. Thus if a winner's curse is a behavioral reality then bidders are not generally using ex ante optimal strategies.     

Anchoring effects in an experimental auction – Are farmers anchored?

Auctioning goods is a widespread practice, particularly in the agricultural sector. The outcome of auctions can be affected by various factors. One of these factors can be anchoring effects, which describe the influence of present available information on numerical values in human decisions. However, the influence of anchoring effects in auctions carried out offline – that is, live events that are not taking place on the internet – is largely unknown. For this reason, we analyze anchoring effects of exogenously provided values using an experimental common value auction with entrepreneurs. In total, 48 groups each made of five farmers participate in a series of four auctions for envelopes containing a €10 banknote with a 50% probability of occurrence. Our results indicate that anchoring based on exogenously presented values can either result in negative adjustment in open bid auctions, or no adjustment in closed-seal bid auctions. Furthermore, the results show that previous bids affect following bids, which may also be an anchoring effect.     

COLLUSION IN PROCUREMENT AUCTIONS: AN EXPERIMENTAL EXAMINATION

Experimental methods are used to examine the existence and detectability of collusion in environments that exhibit critical parallels to procurement auctions. We find that given the opportunity sellers often raise prices considerably. Moreover, noncollusive Nash equilibrium predictions are insufficient to dismiss "suspicious" behavior as innocuous: in an environment where identical prices are predicted in a noncollusive Nash equilibrium, common prices are observed only when sellers communicate. In a second environment designed to parallel construction procurement contracting, market rotations are observed both with and without collusion, but collusion can often be detected from the pattern of losing bids.     

Bidder Preferences among Auction Institutions

This study examines bidder preferences between alternative auction institutions. We seek to characterize experimentally the degree to which bidders prefer an ascending auction to a sealed bid auction. We find very strong ceteris paribus preferences for the ascending institution with bidders choosing it overwhelmingly often when entry prices for the two auctions are the same. When the entry prices of the two auctions differ, many subjects can be shown to be willing to pay more to enter the ascending auction than is explainable by their risk attitudes when accounting for their expectations about the risk preferences of their opponents. (JEL C91 , D44 )     

FIXED REVENUE AUCTIONS: THEORY AND BEHAVIOR

In this paper, we study auctions in which the revenue is fixed but the quantity is determined by the auction mechanism. Specifically, we investigate the theory and behavior of English quantity clock, Dutch quantity clock, last‐quantity sealed bid, and penultimate‐quantity sealed bid auctions. For theoretically equivalent fixed quantity and fixed revenue auctions, we find that fixed revenue auctions are robust to all the previously observed empirical regularities in fixed quantity auctions. (JEL C9, D4, L2)     

TACIT COLLUSION IN AUCTIONS AND CONDITIONS FOR ITS FACILITATION AND PREVENTION: EQUILIBRIUM SELECTION IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTAL MARKETS

The paper studies bidder behavior in simultaneous, continuous, ascending price auctions. We design and implement a "collusion incubator" environment based on a type of public, symmetrically "folded" and "item-aligned" preferences. Tacit collusion develops quickly and reliably within the environment. Once tacit collusion developed, it proved remarkably robust to institutional changes that weakened it as an equilibrium of a game-theoretic model. The only successful remedy was a non-public change in the preference of participants that destroyed the symmetrically, "folded" and "item aligned" patterns of preferences, creating head-to-head competition between two agents reminiscent of the concept of a "maverick." ( JEL L50, L94, D43)     

FIRST-PRICE COMMON VALUE AUCTIONS: BIDDER BEHAVIOR AND THE "WINNER'S CURSE"

Experimental auction markets are characterized by a strong winner's curse in early auction periods as high bidders consistently lose money, failing to account for the adverse selection problem inherent in winning the auction. With experience and bankruptcy on the part of the worst offenders, subjects earn positive average profits, but these are far below Nash equilibrium predictions as a sizable minority of bids exceed the expected value of the item conditional on having the highest estimate of value. Individual bidding behavior is explored to identify the mechanism whereby market outcomes no longer display the worst effects of the winner's curse.     

LESSONS FROM A FAILED AIRLINE AUCTION

In 1995, USAir placed itself for sale in an English auction. Interestingly, no bids were placed. This does not imply that the available firm is not a valuable acquisition. If losing reduces profits, firms wish to avoid a profit-reducing bidding war. However, in a sealed-bid auction (with no credible nonparticipation commitments), firms place profit-reducing bids in equilibrium. Also, a novelty of our analysis is the specification of the loser's profit rising with the price that the winner pays. This highlights an important explanation of bidding wars because a firm may bid simply to make the eventual winner pay a higher price. ( JEL L1, L9)     

SOME EVIDENCE ON LATE BIDDING IN EBAY AUCTIONS

Bidding in the last seconds or minutes of an auction is a common strategy in Internet auctions with fixed end‐time. This paper examines the three explanations of late bidding in eBay auctions that survived the first scrutiny in Roth and Ockenfels (2002) . There is no indication that late bidding could lead to collusive gains for bidders. Late bidding is a strategic response to the presence of bidders placing multiple bids. Experts protecting their private information are typically the last to bid, while collectors are often the first. As bidders gain familiarity with eBay rules, they tend to bid slightly earlier. (JEL D44)     

THE BEHAVIOR OF INEXPERIENCED BIDDERS IN INTERNET AUCTIONS

In Internet auctions, bidders alter their strategies as they gain market experience. While inexperienced bidders bid the same high amounts regardless of the seller’s reputation, experienced bidders bid substantially less if the seller has yet to establish a reputation and raise their bids as reports are filed that the seller has treated bidders well in the past. Experienced bidders also wait until much closer to the end of the auction to place their bids, although it takes very little experience to learn that waiting to submit one’s bid is a superior strategy. (JEL L14, L15, D83, D12)     

INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AND BIDDING HETEROGENEITY IN SEALED BID AUCTIONS WHERE THE NUMBER OF BIDDERS IS UNKNOWN

This article uses laboratory data from a series of first‐price (FP) and second‐price (SP) sealed bid auctions in which the number of bidders is unknown to test for possible deviations of individual behavior from theory and study the source of heterogeneity in bidding. In SP auctions we find a substantial amount of coincidence with theory. We observe systematic deviations from risk neutral bidding in FP auctions and show theoretically that these deviations are consistent with risk averse preferences. We find essentially no heterogeneity in bidding in SP auctions where risk preferences and the number of bidders do not affect the optimal bid, while in the FP auctions heterogeneity in bidding persists with experience. We find that heterogeneity in bidding in FP auctions is consistent with heterogeneity in risk preferences, the attempt to count the number of bidders in the auction, and bidder specific noise. (JEL D44, C91)     

COMPETITION AND BIDDING BEHAVIOR: SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE RICE MARKET

When objects have uncertain value, the net effect of competition in sealed-bid auctions is ambiguous. The risk of succumbing to the "winner's curse" generally causes bidders to exhibit a non-aggressive response in addition to the standard competitive effect. Sellers can influence the size of the nonaggressive effect by responding to the value uncertainty. This paper focuses specifically on individual bidding behavior in a rice auction market in which sellers issue a product-quality guarantee. The empirical evidence supports my hypothesis that such a guarantee negates the significance of the nonaggressive bidder response.     

Ordering competition: the interactional accomplishment of the sale of art and antiques at auction

Auctions provide an institutional solution to a social problem; they enable the legitimate pricing and exchange of goods where those goods are of uncertain value. In turn, auctions raise a number of social and organizational issues that are resolved within the interaction that arise in sales by auction. In this paper, we examine sales of fine art, antiques and objets d'art and explore the ways in which auctioneers mediate competition between buyers and establish a value for goods. In particular, we explore how bids are elicited, co-ordinated and revealed so as to rapidly escalate the price of goods in a transparent manner that enables the legitimate valuation and exchange of goods. In directing attention towards the significance of the social interaction, including talk, visual and material conduct, the paper contributes to the growing corpus of ethnographic studies of markets. It suggests that to understand the operation of markets and their outcomes, and to unpack issues of agency, trust and practice, we need to place the 'interaction order' at the heart of analytic agenda.     

INCENTIVES AND BEHAVIOR IN ENGLISH, DUTCH AND SEALED-BID AUCTIONS

The Pareto optimality and price behavior of English and Dutch oral auctions, and First-Price and Second-Price sealedbid auctions are compared under various procedures for assigning valuations among cash motivated bidders. The Vickrey propositions with respect to the mean and variance of prices under the English, Dutch and Second-Price auctions are not falsified by the data. Individual behavior and prices in the First-Price auction deviates considerably from Vickrey's Nash postulate. Behaviorly, the English and Second-Price auctions appear to be isomorphic, but the Dutch and First-Price auctions may not be isomorphic.     

ROBUSTNESS OF BIDDER PREFERENCES AMONG AUCTION INSTITUTIONS

In previous work, we found that bidders strongly prefer the ascending to the first‐price sealed‐bid auction on a ceteris paribus basis, but perhaps surprisingly, they are not willing to pay up to an entry price for the ascending auction that would equalize the profits. Risk aversion was proposed as an explanation. In this study, we examine two alternative explanations for the observed behavior: loss aversion and aversion to the dynamic bidding process. We find that neither alternative explanation can account for bidders’ auction choice behavior, leaving risk aversion as the only unfalsified hypothesis. (JEL C91, D44)     

PRICE ADJUSTMENT POLICIES AND FIRM SIZE

A number of U.S. State Departments of Transportation have adopted a price adjustment policy designed to limit cost fluctuations of oil‐based inputs in government procurement. Similar policies are common in defense contracting, and have been used to offset financial losses of health insurance companies in Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. We show that while all bidders submit lower bids after the policy is introduced, the extent of bid reduction diminishes with firm size. Small new firms are able to compete more frequently, promoting auction competition and efficiency. (JEL H4, H57, D44)