The impact of the irrelevant – Temporary buy-options and bidding behavior in online auctions
Abstract
In a laboratory experiment, we investigate the impact of temporary buy-options on efficiency, revenues, and bidding behavior in online proxy-auctions when bidders have independent private valuations. We show that the introduction of a buy-option reduces efficiency and at the same time fails to enhance revenues. In particular, we observe that the former presence of a temporary buy-option lowers final prices in an auction (even though the option is no longer available once an auction has started). If bidders have imprecise information about their private value, auction prices are increasing in the price of the buy-option which suggests anchoring as an explanation. Surprisingly, the former presence of a temporary buy-option also tends to reduce final auction prices if bidders are perfectly informed about their private value. In fact, we demonstrate that bidders are reluctant to bid above the option price regardless of the precision of their private information and the price of the option.Download Info
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Paper provided by Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization in its series Research Memoranda with number 027.Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dgr:umamet:2007027
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Web page: http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/UMPublications.htm
Related research
Keywords: microeconomics ;This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-07-13 (All new papers)
- NEP-CDM-2007-07-13 (Collective Decision-Making)
- NEP-GTH-2007-07-13 (Game Theory)
- NEP-HPE-2007-07-13 (History & Philosophy of Economics)
References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Tim Grebe & Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel & Sabine Kröger, 2009.
"Buy-it-Now Prices in eBay Auctions-The Field in the Lab,"
Cahiers de recherche
0950, CIRPEE.
- Grebe, Tim & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kröger, Sabine, 2010. "Buy-It-Now prices in eBay Auctions - The Field in the Lab," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 294, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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