IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v7y2016i3p22-d77067.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Auctions Versus Private Negotiations in Buyer-Seller Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Alison Watts

    (Department of Economics, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901,USA)

Abstract

Buyer-seller networks where price is determined by an ascending-bid auction are important in many economic examples such as certain real estate markets, radio spectrum sharing, and buyer-supplier networks. However, it may be that some sellers are better off not participating in the auction. We consider what happens if sellers can make a take it or leave it offer to one of their linked buyers before the auction takes place and thus such a seller can choose not to participate in the auction. We give conditions on the graph and buyers valuations under which the buyer and seller will both agree to such a take it or leave it offer. Specifically, the buyer-seller pair will choose private negotiation over the auction if the seller acts as a network bridge with power over the buyer and if there are enough buyers with low valuations so that the seller does not expect to receive a high price in the auction.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison Watts, 2016. "Auctions Versus Private Negotiations in Buyer-Seller Networks," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-14, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:7:y:2016:i:3:p:22-:d:77067
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/7/3/22/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/7/3/22/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sotirios Thanos & Michael White, 2014. "Expectation Adjustment in the Housing Market: Insights from the Scottish Auction System," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 339-361, April.
    2. Chris Maher, 1989. "Information, Intermediaries and Sales Strategy in an Urban Housing Market: The Implications of Real Estate Auctions in Melbourne," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 26(5), pages 495-509, October.
    3. Ping Wang & Alison Watts, 2006. "Formation of buyer‐seller trade networks in a quality‐differentiated product market," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(3), pages 971-1004, August.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy & Klemperer, Paul, 1996. "Auctions versus Negotiations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 180-194, March.
    5. Itay Fainmesser, 2010. "Community Structure and Market Outcomes: A Repeated Games in Networks Approach," Working Papers 2010-14, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    6. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2003. "Unraveling Reduces Mobility in a Labor Market: Gastroenterology with and without a Centralized Match," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1342-1352, December.
    7. Zhang, Hanzhe, 2021. "The optimal sequence of prices and auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    8. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2001. "Unraveling Reduces the Scope of an Entry Level Labor Market: Gastroenterology With and Without a Centralized Match," NBER Working Papers 8616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Wang, Ruqu, 1993. "Auctions versus Posted-Price Selling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 838-851, September.
    10. Catherine C. Fontenay & Joshua S. Gans, 2014. "Bilateral Bargaining with Externalities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 756-788, December.
    11. Stevenson, Simon & Young, James & Gurdgiev, Constantin, 2010. "A comparison of the appraisal process for auction and private treaty residential sales," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 145-154, June.
    12. Blume, Lawrence E. & Easley, David & Kleinberg, Jon & Tardos, Éva, 2009. "Trading networks with price-setting agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 36-50, September.
    13. Simon Board & Marek Pycia, 2014. "Outside Options and the Failure of the Coase Conjecture," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 656-671, February.
    14. Condorelli, Daniele & Galeotti, Andrea, 2012. "Bilateral Trading in Networks," Economics Discussion Papers 24004, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    15. Bayati, Mohsen & Borgs, Christian & Chayes, Jennifer & Kanoria, Yash & Montanari, Andrea, 2015. "Bargaining dynamics in exchange networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 417-454.
    16. John William Hatfield & Scott Duke Kominers & Alexandru Nichifor & Michael Ostrovsky & Alexander Westkamp, 2013. "Stability and Competitive Equilibrium in Trading Networks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 966-1005.
    17. Daniele Condorelli & Andrea Galeotti & Ludovic Renou, 2017. "Bilateral Trading in Networks," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 82-105.
    18. Corominas-Bosch, Margarida, 2004. "Bargaining in a network of buyers and sellers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 35-77, March.
    19. Itay P. Fainmesser, 2012. "Community Structure and Market Outcomes: A Repeated Games-in-Networks Approach," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 32-69, February.
    20. Abreu, Dilip & Manea, Mihai, 2012. "Bargaining and efficiency in networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 43-70.
    21. Mihai Manea, 2011. "Bargaining in Stationary Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2042-2080, August.
    22. Kenneth M. Lusht, 1996. "A Comparison of Prices Brought by English Auctions and Private Negotiations," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 24(4), pages 517-530, December.
    23. Rachel E. Kranton & Deborah F. Minehart, 2001. "A Theory of Buyer-Seller Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 485-508, June.
    24. Matthew Elliott, 2015. "Inefficiencies in Networked Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 43-82, November.
    25. Goyal, Sanjeev & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2007. "Structural holes in social networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 460-492, November.
    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. BEDAYO, Mikel & MAULEON, Ana & VANNETELBOSCH, Vincent, 2012. "Bargaining and delay in trading networks," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012046, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Bedayo, Mikel & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2016. "Bargaining in endogenous trading networks," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 70-82.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Jan-Peter Siedlarek, 2012. "Intermediation in Networks," Working Papers 2012.42, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Donna, Javier D. & Schenone, Pablo & Veramendi, Gregory F., 2020. "Networks, frictions, and price dispersion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 406-431.
    6. Nava, Francesco, 2015. "Efficiency in decentralized oligopolistic markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 315-348.
    7. Thành Nguyen & Karthik Kannan, 2021. "Welfare Implications in Intermediary Networks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 378-393, June.
    8. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Condorelli, Daniele & Galeotti, Andrea, 2012. "Endogenous Trading Networks," Economics Discussion Papers 2871, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    10. Thành Nguyen, 2015. "Coalitional Bargaining in Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 501-511, June.
    11. Gauer, F. & Hellmann, T., 2017. "Strategic formation of homogeneous bargaining networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 51-74.
    12. Semyon Malamud & Marzena Rostek, 2017. "Decentralized Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3320-3362, November.
    13. Cho, Myeonghwan, 2021. "Trading networks of price-taking buyers and sellers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    14. Itkonen, Juha, 2017. "Efficiency and dependency in a network of linked permit markets," Research Discussion Papers 20/2017, Bank of Finland.
    15. Goyal, S., 2016. "Networks and Markets," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1652, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Talamàs, Eduard, 2019. "Price dispersion in stationary networked markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 247-264.
    17. Qi Feng & Chengzhang Li & Mengshi Lu & J. George Shanthikumar, 2022. "Implementing Environmental and Social Responsibility Programs in Supply Networks Through Multiunit Bilateral Negotiation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2579-2599, April.
    18. in 't Veld, Daan & van der Leij, Marco & Hommes, Cars, 2020. "The formation of a core-periphery structure in heterogeneous financial networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    19. Agranov, M. & Elliott, M., 2017. "Commitment and (In)Efficiency: A Bargaining Experiment," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1743, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Matthew Elliott & Arun Chandrasekhar & Attila Ambrus, 2015. "Social Investments, Informal Risk Sharing, and Inequality," 2015 Meeting Papers 189, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    21. Arnaud Zlatko Dragicevic, 2022. "Exchange Networks with Stochastic Matching," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, December.

    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:gam:jgames:v:7:y:2016:i:3:p:22-:d:77067. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.