Dufwenberg, Martin () (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University) Gneezy, Uri () (Haifa University)
Abstract
A government that regularly procures the services of construction companies wants to minimize its costs. The instrument it can use is the level of information feedback given to the firms in the market. Theoretically, the competition between firms is supposed to drive prices to the lowest possibility, independently of the information feedback.
We design an experiment in which firms participate in a first price sealed-bid auction. Interaction takes place in 10 periods according to a random matching mechanism, and we control for the level of information feedback firms receive after each period. It turns out that when firms are informed about the losing bids in previous periods, prices are higher than the theoretical prediction. However, when firms do not receive this information prices converge towards the theoretical prediction. We suggest that aphenomenon of price signaling may be important for explaining these results.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stockholm University, Department of Economics in its series Research Papers in Economics with number
2000:2.
Length: 23 pages Date of creation: 20 Dec 1999 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2000_0002
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Find related papers by JEL classification: C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
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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.:
Matthew Jackson & Ehud Kalai, 1995.
"Social Learning in Recurring Games,"
Discussion Papers
1138, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
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