IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v53y2015i2p1236-1258.html

Capacity Constraints And Information Revelation In Procurement Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Viplav Saini
  • Jordan F. Suter

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="ecin12158-abs-0001"> We utilize laboratory experiments to study behavior in sequential procurement auctions where winning an auction round increases a bidder's future costs. The game admits competitive as well as bid-rotation style collusive equilibria. We find that (a) bidders show some propensity to account for the opportunity cost of winning an auction, but underestimate its magnitude; (b) revealing all bids (instead of only the winning bid) after each round leads to dramatically higher procurement costs. The rise in procurement costs is accompanied by an increase in very high (extreme) bids, a fraction of which appear to be collusive in nature . ( JEL C91, D44, L44)

Suggested Citation

  • Viplav Saini & Jordan F. Suter, 2015. "Capacity Constraints And Information Revelation In Procurement Auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 1236-1258, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:2:p:1236-1258
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecin.2015.53.issue-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saini, Viplav, 2010. "Reserve prices in a dynamic auction when bidders are capacity-constrained," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 303-306, September.
    2. Isaac, R. Mark & Walker, James M., 1985. "Information and conspiracy in sealed bid auctions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 139-159, June.
    3. Dakshina G. De Silva & Timothy Dunne & Georgia Kosmopoulou, 2003. "An Empirical Analysis of Entrant and Incumbent Bidding in Road Construction Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 295-316, September.
    4. Mireia Jofre-Bonet & Martin Pesendorfer, 2003. "Estimation of a Dynamic Auction Game," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1443-1489, September.
    5. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Asymmetric Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 413-438.
    6. Porter, Robert H & Zona, J Douglas, 1993. "Detection of Bid Rigging in Procurement Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 518-538, June.
    7. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Dunne, Timothy & Kankanamge, Anuruddha & Kosmopoulou, Georgia, 2008. "The impact of public information on bidding in highway procurement auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 150-181, January.
    8. Anthony M. Kwasnica & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2007. "Collusion and Equilibrium Selection in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(516), pages 120-145, January.
    9. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2002. "Information disclosure in auctions: an experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 431-444, August.
    10. Drew Fudenberg & David Levine & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem With Imperfect Public Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 12, pages 231-273, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Dunne, Timothy & Kosmopoulou, Georgia, 2002. "Sequential bidding in auctions of construction contracts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 239-244, July.
    12. Skrzypacz, Andrzej & Hopenhayn, Hugo, 2004. "Corrigendum to "Tacit collusion in repeated auctions" [J. Econ. Theory 114 (2004) 153-169]," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 370-371, February.
    13. Jofre-Bonet, Mireia & Pesendorfer, Martin, 2014. "Optimal sequential auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 61-71.
    14. Engelmann, Dirk & Müller, Wieland, 2011. "Collusion through price ceilings? In search of a focal-point effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 291-302, August.
    15. Pedro Dal Bó, 2005. "Cooperation under the Shadow of the Future: Experimental Evidence from Infinitely Repeated Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1591-1604, December.
    16. Brosig, Jeannette & Rei[ss], J. Philipp, 2007. "Entry decisions and bidding behavior in sequential first-price procurement auctions: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 50-74, January.
    17. Patrick Bajari & Lixin Ye, 2003. "Deciding Between Competition and Collusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 971-989, November.
    18. Leufkens Kasper & Peeters Ronald & Vorsatz Marc, 2012. "An Experimental Comparison of Sequential First- and Second-Price Auctions with Synergies," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, January.
    19. Todd Kaplan & Shmuel Zamir, 2012. "Asymmetric first-price auctions with uniform distributions: analytic solutions to the general case," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 269-302, June.
    20. Thomas D. Jeitschko & Elmar Wolfstetter, 2002. "Scale Economies and the Dynamics of Recurring Auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 403-414, July.
    21. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1992. "Bidding Rings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 579-599, June.
      • McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John., 1990. "Bidding Rings," Working Papers 726, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    22. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haoran He & Yefeng Chen, 2021. "Auction mechanisms for allocating subsidies for carbon emissions reduction: an experimental investigation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 387-430, August.
    2. Corazzini, Luca & Galavotti, Stefano & Valbonesi, Paola, 2019. "An experimental study on sequential auctions with privately known capacities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 289-315.
    3. Dechenaux, Emmanuel & Mago, Shakun D., 2019. "Communication and side payments in a duopoly with private costs: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 157-184.

    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. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Kosmopoulou, Georgia, 2005. "Stochastic synergies in sequential auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 183-201, April.
    2. Cerrone, Claudia & Hermstrüwer, Yoan & Robalo, Pedro, 2021. "Debarment and collusion in procurement auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 114-143.
    3. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Onderstal, Sander, 2011. "Fighting collusion in auctions: An experimental investigation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 84-96, January.
    4. Saini, Viplav, 2010. "Reserve prices in a dynamic auction when bidders are capacity-constrained," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 303-306, September.
    5. Wang, Hong, 2017. "Information acquisition versus information manipulation in multi-period procurement markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 48-59.
    6. Haoran He & Yefeng Chen, 2021. "Auction mechanisms for allocating subsidies for carbon emissions reduction: an experimental investigation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 387-430, August.
    7. Sherstyuk, Katerina & Dulatre, Jeremy, 2008. "Market performance and collusion in sequential and simultaneous multi-object auctions: Evidence from an ascending auctions experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 557-572, March.
    8. David Barrus & Frank Scott, 2020. "Single Bidders and Tacit Collusion in Highway Procurement Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 483-522, September.
    9. J. Reiß & Jens Schöndube, 2010. "First-price equilibrium and revenue equivalence in a sequential procurement auction model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 43(1), pages 99-141, April.
    10. Barbosa, Klenio & Boyer, Pierre C., 2021. "Discrimination in Dynamic Procurement Design with Learning-by-doing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Zultan, Ro’i, 2017. "Collusion and information revelation in auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 84-102.
    12. Blume, Andreas & Heidhues, Paul, 2006. "Private monitoring in auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 179-211, November.
    13. Paul Klemperer, 2007. "Bidding Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-47.
    14. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Kosmopoulou, Georgia & Lamarche, Carlos, 2009. "The effect of information on the bidding and survival of entrants in procurement auctions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 56-72, February.
    15. Jeannette Brosig-Koch & Werner Güth & Torsten Weiland, 2016. "Comparing the effectiveness of collusion devices in first-price procurement: an auction experiment," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 269-295, December.
    16. Pacharasut Sujarittanonta & Ajalavat Viriyavipart, 2021. "Deterring collusion with a reserve price: an auction experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 536-557, June.
    17. Dakshina De Silva & Thomas Jeitschko & Georgia Kosmopoulou, 2009. "Entry and Bidding in Common and Private Value Auctions with an Unknown Number of Rivals," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 35(1), pages 73-93, September.
    18. Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Ro’i Zultan, 2014. "Auction Mechanisms And Bidder Collusion: Bribes, Signals And Selection," Working Papers 1406, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    19. Biran, Omer, 2011. "Core stable bidding rings in independent private value auctions with externalities," MPRA Paper 32164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Hiroshi Ohashi, 2009. "Effects of Transparency in Procurement Practices on Government Expenditure: A Case Study of Municipal Public Works," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 34(3), pages 267-285, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L44 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprise, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:2:p:1236-1258. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    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.