IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ctswps/2012_023.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multi-unit common value auctions: a laboratory experiment with three sealed-bid mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Ahlberg , Joakim

    (VTI)

Abstract

This study addresses a discrete common value environment with independent (one-dimensional) private signals, where the seller offers two identical units and the buyers have (flat) demand for both. Each session is conducted with 2, 3 or 4 buyers. Three auction formats are used: the discriminatory, uniform and Vickrey auctions which are all subjected to a variation in the number of bidders and to repeating bid rounds on each subject. The main findings are that there are no significant differences between the uniform and the discriminatory auction in collecting revenue, while the Vickrey auction comes out as inferior. More bidders in the auction result in a greater revenue and level out the performance across the mechanisms. Demand reduction is visible in the experiment, but it is not as prominent as anticipated. Moreover, subjects come closer to equilibrium play over time. Finally, the winner's curse is less severe than what is reported for inexperienced bidders in other studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahlberg , Joakim, 2012. "Multi-unit common value auctions: a laboratory experiment with three sealed-bid mechanisms," Working papers in Transport Economics 2012:23, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2012_023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.transportportal.se/SWoPEc/CTS2012-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2009. "Bidding Behaviour in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 855-882, April.
    2. DavidJ. Cooper & Hanming Fang, 2008. "Understanding Overbidding In Second Price Auctions: An Experimental Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1572-1595, October.
    3. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 1998. "Multi-unit auctions with uniform prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(2), pages 227-258.
    4. Manelli, Alejandro M. & Sefton, Martin & Wilner, Benjamin S., 2006. "Multi-unit auctions: A comparison of static and dynamic mechanisms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 304-323, October.
    5. Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 2002. "Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 23-46, Spring.
    6. Dan Levin, 2005. "Demand Reduction in Multi-Unit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 467-471, March.
    7. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & John A. List & David H. Reiley, 2006. "Demand Reduction In Multi-Unit Auctions With Varying Numbers Of Bidders: Theory And Evidence From A Field Experiment ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 203-231, February.
    8. David Lucking-Reiley & John A. List, 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.
    9. Joakim Ahlberg, 2009. "Revenues in discrete multi-unit, common value auctions: a study of three sealed-bid mechanisms," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 8(1), pages 3-14, April.
    10. Lawrence M. Ausubel, 2004. "An Efficient Ascending-Bid Auction for Multiple Objects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1452-1475, December.
    11. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Emel Filiz-Ozbay & Nathaniel Higgins & Erkut Ozbay & Andrew Stocking, 2009. "Common-Value Auctions with Liquidity Needs: An Experimental Test of a Troubled Assets Reverse Auction," Papers of Peter Cramton 09cvawln, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    12. 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.
    13. Kagel, John H & Levin, Dan, 2001. "Behavior in Multi-unit Demand Auctions: Experiments with Uniform Price and Dynamic Vickrey Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 413-454, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Kagel, John H & Harstad, Ronald M & Levin, Dan, 1987. "Information Impact and Allocation Rules in Auctions with Affiliated Private Values: A Laboratory Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1275-1304, November.
    16. Cox, James C & Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1992. "Theory and Misbehavior of First-Price Auctions: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1392-1412, December.
    17. Noussair, Charles, 1995. "Equilibria in a Multi-object Uniform Price Sealed Bid Auction with Multi-unit Demands," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 337-351, March.
    18. Back, Kerry & Zender, Jaime F, 1993. "Auctions of Divisible Goods: On the Rationale for the Treasury Experiment," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 733-764.
    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. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2009. "Bidding Behaviour in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 855-882, April.
    2. Ping Zhang, 2009. "Characterization of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Uniform Price IPO Auctions," Discussion Papers 2009-05, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    3. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2003. "Bidding Behavior in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation and some Theoretical Insights," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp210, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    4. Takehito Masuda & Ryo Mikami & Toyotaka Sakai & Shigehiro Serizawa & Takuma Wakayama, 2022. "The net effect of advice on strategy-proof mechanisms: an experiment for the Vickrey auction," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 902-941, June.
    5. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & John A. List & David H. Reiley, 2005. "Demand Reduction in Multi-Unit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 472-476, March.
    6. Kagel, John H. & Levin, Dan, 2009. "Implementing efficient multi-object auction institutions: An experimental study of the performance of boundedly rational agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 221-237, May.
    7. Ping Zhang, 2009. "Characterization of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Uniform Price IPO Auctions," Discussion Papers 2009-05, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    8. Raphaële Préget & Sophie Thoyer, 2009. "Multi-Unit Auctions and Competition Stricture," Working Papers 09-18, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Dec 2009.
    9. Sherstyuk, Katerina, 2008. "Some Results on Anti-Competitive Behavior in Multi-Unit Ascending Price Auctions," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 185-198, Elsevier.
    10. Takehito Masuda & Ryo Mikami & Toyotaka Sakai & Shigehiro Serizawa & Takuma Wakayama, 2020. "The net effect of advice on strategy-proof mechanisms: An experiment for the Vickrey auction," ISER Discussion Paper 1109r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised May 2021.
    11. Marco Pagnozzi, 2007. "Should Speculators Be Welcomed in Auctions?," CSEF Working Papers 176, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    12. Manelli, Alejandro M. & Sefton, Martin & Wilner, Benjamin S., 2006. "Multi-unit auctions: A comparison of static and dynamic mechanisms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 304-323, October.
    13. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Takehito Masuda & Ryo Mikami & Toyotaka Sakai & Shigehiro Serizawa & Takuma Wakayama, 2020. "The net effect of advice on strategy-proof mechanisms: An experiment for the Vickrey auction," ISER Discussion Paper 1109, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    15. Alexander Elbittar & Andrei Gomberg, 2007. "Uniform-Price Auctions without Exogenous Uncertainty: An experimental study," Working papers DTE 404, CIDE, División de Economía.
    16. Schnitzlein, Charles R. & Shao, Minjie, 2013. "Capacity constraints and the winner's curse in multi-unit common value auctions," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 188-201.
    17. Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal, 2006. "Going, Going, Gone! A Swift Tour of Auction Theory and its Applications," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 197-249, June.
    18. Bresky, Michal, 2013. "Revenue and efficiency in multi-unit uniform-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 205-217.
    19. Atakelty Hailu & Sophie Thoyer, 2007. "Designing Multi‐unit Multiple Bid Auctions: An Agent‐based Computational Model of Uniform, Discriminatory and Generalised Vickrey Auctions," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(s1), pages 57-72, September.
    20. Jacob Goeree & Theo Offerman & Randolph Sloof, 2013. "Demand reduction and preemptive bidding in multi-unit license auctions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(1), pages 52-87, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Laboratory experiment; Multi-unit auction; Common value auction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hhs:ctswps:2012_023. 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: CTS (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.cts.kth.se/ .

    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.