IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/35081.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bidding behaviors in eBay auctions: secret reservation price and endogenous entry

Author

Listed:
  • JIAO, FENG

Abstract

This paper analyzes the secret reservation price in eBay auctions. Under the assumptions of secret and public reservation price, the bidders choose the optimal bidding function and the seller selects equilibrium reservation price. This model argues that the choice of secret reservation price is rational for the seller, as they can generate higher revenue in certain conditions. It predicts that, under endogenous entry, secret reservation price leads to higher revenue since it attracts more bidders to the auction. This effect is more noticeable for luxury goods. However, secret and public reservation prices generate identical revenue for the seller if entry is exogenous. Furthermore, the results are supported by numerous recent empirical works.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiao, Feng, 2011. "Bidding behaviors in eBay auctions: secret reservation price and endogenous entry," MPRA Paper 35081, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:35081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/35081/2/MPRA_paper_35081.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vuong, Q. & Laffont, J.J. & Elyakime, B. & Loisel, P., 1995. "Auctioning and Bargaining: An Econometric Study of Timber Auctions with Secret Reservation Prices," Papers 9502, Southern California - Department of Economics.
    2. Katkar Rama & Reiley David H, 2007. "Public versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions: Results from a Pokémon Field Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-25, January.
    3. Vincent Daniel R., 1995. "Bidding Off the Wall: Why Reserve Prices May Be Kept Secret," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 575-584, April.
    4. repec:adr:anecst:y:1994:i:34:p:04 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bernard Elyakime & Jean-Jacques Laffont & Patrice Loisel & Quang Vuong, 1994. "First-Price Sealed-Bid Auctions with Secret Reservation Prices," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 34, pages 71-114.
    6. David Lucking‐Reiley & Doug Bryan & Naghi Prasad & Daniel Reeves, 2007. "Pennies From Ebay: The Determinants Of Price In Online Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 223-233, June.
    7. Oliver Hinz & Martin Spann, 2008. "The Impact of Information Diffusion on Bidding Behavior in Secret Reserve Price Auctions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 351-368, September.
    8. Elyakime, Bernard, et al, 1997. "Auctioning and Bargaining: An Econometric Study of Timber Auctions with Secret Reservation Prices," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(2), pages 209-220, April.
    9. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1996. "Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1271-1283, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brisset, Karine & Cochard, François & Le Gallo, Julie, 2015. "Secret versus public reserve price in an “outcry” English procurement auction: Experimental results," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 285-298.

    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. Han, Jidong & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Zhang, Zelin, 2021. "Empirical Analyses of Nonlinear Effects of Reserve Prices on Ending Prices in Online Auctions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 86-102.
    2. Patrick Bajari & Ali Hortaçsu, 2004. "Economic Insights from Internet Auctions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 457-486, June.
    3. Pasha Andreyanov & El Hadi Caoui, 2022. "Secret reserve prices by uninformed sellers," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1203-1256, July.
    4. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bernard Elyakime & Patrice Loisel, 1997. "Asymétrie dans des enchères à prix de retrait secret," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(4), pages 835-851.
    6. Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer & Marco Bertini & Ernan Haruvy & Sandy D. Jap & Oded Koenigsberg & Vincent Mak & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Bernd Skiera & Manoj Thomas, 2018. "Beyond Posted Prices: the Past, Present, and Future of Participative Pricing Mechanisms," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 5(1), pages 121-136, March.
    7. Li, Tong, 2010. "Indirect inference in structural econometric models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 120-128, July.
    8. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    9. Diego Moreno & John Wooders, 2011. "Auctions with heterogeneous entry costs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(2), pages 313-336, June.
    10. Estache, Antonio & Quesada, Lucia, 2001. "Concession contract renegotiations : some efficiency versus equity dilemmas," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2705, The World Bank.
    11. Li, Tong & Perrigne, Isabelle & Vuong, Quang, 2000. "Conditionally independent private information in OCS wildcat auctions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 129-161, September.
    12. Xinyan Shi, 2013. "Common-value auctions with asymmetrically informed bidders and reserve price," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 9(2), pages 161-175, June.
    13. David Grether & David Porter & Matthew Shum, 2015. "Cyber-Shilling in Automobile Auctions: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 85-103, August.
    14. Foster, Joshua, 2022. "Semi-nonparametric estimation of secret reserve prices in auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    15. Elena Krasnokutskaya, 2004. "Identification and Estimation in Highway Procurement Auctions under Unobserved Auction Heterogeneity," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-006, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Philippe Février, 2008. "Nonparametric identification and estimation of a class of common value auction models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(7), pages 949-964.
    17. Lu Ji & Tong Li, 2008. "Multi-round procurement auctions with secret reserve prices: theory and evidence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(7), pages 897-923.
    18. Philippe Février, 2007. "Nonparametric Identification and Estimation of a Common Value Auction Model," Working Papers 2007-22, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    19. Patrick Bajari & Ali Hortacsu, 2003. "Economic Insights from Internet Auctions: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10076, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Onur A. Koska & Frank Stähler, 2017. "When should bidders learn reserve prices?," ERC Working Papers 1712, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Oct 2017.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    eBay; auctions; secret reservation prices; endogenous entry; mechanism design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    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:pra:mprapa:35081. 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: Joachim Winter (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.