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Bidding Behavior and Decision Costs in Field Experiments

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Author Info
John A. List
David Lucking-Reiley

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Abstract

Whether rationality of economic behavior increases with expected payoffs and decreases with the cognitive cost it takes to formulate an optimal strategy remains an open question. We explore these issues with field data, using individual bids from sealed-bid auctions in which we sold nearly $10,000 worth of sports cards. Our results indicate that stakes do indeed matter, as high-priced ($70) cards produced more of the theoretically predicted strategic behavior than did lower-priced ($3) cards. We find additional evidence consistent with the importance of cognitive costs, as subjects more experienced with sports card auctions exhibited a greater tendency to behave strategically than did less experienced bidders. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Oxford University Press in its journal Economic Inquiry.

Volume (Year): 40 (2002)
Issue (Month): 4 (October)
Pages: 611-619
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:oup:ecinqu:v:40:y:2002:i:4:p:611-619

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References listed on IDEAS
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. List, John A & Shogren, Jason F, 1998. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1350-55, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. John Conlisk, 1996. "Why Bounded Rationality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 669-700, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1993. "Monetary Rewards and Decision Cost in Experimental Economics," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 245-61, April.
  4. Tenorio, Rafael, 1997. "On Strategic Quantity Bidding in Multiple Unit Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(2), pages 207-17, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-31, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. John A. List & David Lucking-Reiley, 2000. "Demand Reduction in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 961-972, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Noussair, Charles, 1995. "Equilibria in a Multi-object Uniform Price Sealed Bid Auction with Multi-unit Demands," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 337-51, March.
  8. Robert Slonim & Alvin E. Roth, 1998. "Learning in High Stakes Ultimatum Games: An Experiment in the Slovak Republic," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 569-596, May.
  9. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton, 1995. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 98wpdr, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 22 Jul 2002. [Downloadable!]
  10. John A. List, 2001. "Do Explicit Warnings Eliminate the Hypothetical Bias in Elicitation Procedures? Evidence from Field Auctions for Sportscards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1498-1507, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(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. Kelly Shue & Erzo F.P. Luttmer, 2006. "Who Misvotes? The Effect of Differential Cognition Costs on Election Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 2451, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Xin Wang & Alan Montgomery & Kannan Srinivasan, 2008. "When auction meets fixed price: a theoretical and empirical examination of buy-it-now auctions," Quantitative Marketing and Economics, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 339-370, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Rolfe, John & Windle, Jill, 2006. "Using Field Experiments to Explore the Use of Multiple Bidding Rounds in Conservation Auctions," Discussion Papers 25801, International Association of Agricultural Economists. [Downloadable!]
  4. David Porter & Roumen Vragov, 2006. "An experimental examination of demand reduction in multi-unit versions of the Uniform-price, Vickrey, and English auctions," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 445-458. [Downloadable!]
  5. John Rolfe & Jill Windle, 2009. "Costing Water Quality Improvements with auction mechanisms: case studies for the Great Barrier Reef in Australia," Environmental Economics Research Hub Research Reports 0935, Environmental Economics Research Hub, Crawford School, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
  6. Daniel McFadden, 2009. "The human side of mechanism design: a tribute to Leo Hurwicz and Jean-Jacque Laffont," Review of Economic Design, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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