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Vickrey Auctions in Practice: From Nineteenth-Century Philately to Twenty-First-Century E-Commerce

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Author Info
David Lucking-Reiley
Abstract

William Vickrey (1961) proposed an auction mechanism in which bidders submit sealed bids, and the highest bidder wins the good in return for payment of the second-highest bid amount. For decades, economists have credited Vickrey with inventing this auction format, and have believed that the Vickrey auction is rarely used in practice. This paper presents evidence that Vickrey auctions have long been the predominant auction format for mail sales of collectible postage stamps. Stamp auctioneers developed this auction format on their own, as early as 1893, even before Vickrey was born.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Volume (Year): 14 (2000)
Issue (Month): 3 (Summer)
Pages: 183-192
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Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:14:y:2000:i:3:p:183-192

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Rothkopf, Michael H & Harstad, Ronald M, 1995. "Two Models of Bid-Taker Cheating in Vickrey Auctions," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 257-67, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Milgrom, Paul, 1989. "Auctions and Bidding: A Primer," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 3-22, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Rothkopf, Michael H & Teisberg, Thomas J & Kahn, Edward P, 1990. "Why Are Vickrey Auctions Rare?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 94-109, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David Lucking-Reiley, 1999. "Using field experiments to test equivalence between auction formats: Magic On the Internet," Framed Field Experiments 0055, The Field Experiments Website. [Downloadable!]
  5. Richard Arnott, 1998. "William Vickrey: Contributions to Public Policy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 93-113, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Lucking-Reiley, David, 2000. "Auctions on the Internet: What's Being Auctioned, and How?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(3), pages 227-52, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Benny Moldovanu & Manfred Tietzel, 1998. "Goethe's Second-Price Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 854-859, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. David Lucking-Reiley, 1999. "Using Field Experiments to Test Equivalence between Auction Formats: Magic on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1063-1080, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Axel Ockenfels, 2002. "New Institutional Structures on the Internet: The Economic Design of Online Auctions," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-08, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group. [Downloadable!]
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