Price Reveal Auctions on the Internet
Abstract
A price reveal auction is a Dutch auction in which the current price of the item on sale remains hidden. Bidders can privately observe the price only by paying a fee, and every time a bidder does so, the price falls by a predetermined amount. We show that in equilibrium, no rational bidder should enter into such an auction. Contrary to this prediction, data about actual price reveal auctions run on the Internet show that bidders do enter and that the mechanism is profitable for the seller.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Collegio Carlo Alberto in its series Carlo Alberto Notebooks with number 147.
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Length: 13 pages
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:147
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Via Real Collegio, 30, 10024 Moncalieri (To)
Phone: +390116705000
Fax: +390116476847
Email:
Web page: http://www.carloalberto.org/
More information through EDIRC
For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Giovanni Bert).
Related research
Keywords: price reveal auctions; pay-per-bid auctions;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Auctions
- C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2010-08-06 (All new papers)
- NEP-CTA-2010-08-06 (Contract Theory & Applications)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Brennan C. Platt & Joseph Price & Henry Tappen, 2010. "Pay-to-Bid Auctions," NBER Working Papers 15695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Klemperer, P., 1999.
"Auction Theory: a Guide to the Literature,"
Economics Papers
1999-w12, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
- Klemperer, Paul, 1999. " Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 227-86, July.
- Paul Klemperer, 1999. "Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature," Microeconomics 9903002, EconWPA.
- Klemperer, Paul, 1999. "Auction Theory: a Guide to the Literature," CEPR Discussion Papers 2163, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Andrea Gallice, 2009. "Lowest Unique Bid Auctions with Signals," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 112, Collegio Carlo Alberto, revised Sep 2009.
- Jürgen Eichberger & Dmitri Vinogradov, 2008. "Least Unmatched Price Auctions: A First Approach," Working Papers 0471, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008.
- Östling, Robert & Wang, Joseph Tao-yi & Chou, Eileen & Camerer, Colin F., 2007.
"Testing Game Theory in the Field: Swedish LUPI Lottery Games,"
Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance
671, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 30 Oct 2007.
- Robert Ostling & Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Eileen Y. Chou & Colin F. Camerer, 2011. "Testing Game Theory in the Field: Swedish LUPI Lottery Games," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 1-33, August.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Di Gaetano, Luigi, 2011. "A model of descending auction with hidden starting price and endogenous price decrease," MPRA Paper 35773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:147For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Giovanni Bert).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

