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Penny auctions

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  • Hinnosaar, Toomas

Abstract

This paper studies penny auctions, a novel auction format in which every bid increases the price by a small amount, but placing a bid is costly. Outcomes of real-life penny auctions are often surprising. Even when selling cash, the seller may obtain revenue that is much higher or lower than its nominal value, and losers in an auction sometimes pay much more than the winner. This paper characterizes all symmetric Markov-perfect equilibria of penny auctions and studies penny auctions’ properties. The results show that a high variance of outcomes is a natural property of the penny auction format and high revenues are inconsistent with rational risk-neutral participants.

Suggested Citation

  • Hinnosaar, Toomas, 2016. "Penny auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 59-87.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:48:y:2016:i:c:p:59-87
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2016.06.005
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gallice Andrea, 2016. "Price Reveal Auctions," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 485-514, June.
    2. Brennan C. Platt & Joseph Price & Henry Tappen, 2013. "The Role of Risk Preferences in Pay-to-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2117-2134, September.
    3. Brennan C. Platt & Joseph Price & Henry Tappen, 2010. "Pay-to-Bid Auctions," NBER Working Papers 15695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Dan Kovenock & Michael R. Baye & Casper G. de Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 291-305.
    5. Martin Shubik, 1971. "The Dollar Auction game: a paradox in noncooperative behavior and escalation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 15(1), pages 109-111, March.
    6. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Holmes, Jessica & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2014. "“Bucket auctions” for charity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 260-276.
    7. Hendricks, Ken & Weiss, Andrew & Wilson, Charles A, 1988. "The War of Attrition in Continuous Time with Complete Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 29(4), pages 663-680, November.
    8. Robert Östling & 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.
    9. Ned Augenblick, 2016. "The Sunk-Cost Fallacy in Penny Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 58-86.
    10. Raviv, Yaron & Virag, Gabor, 2009. "Gambling by auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 369-378, May.
    11. Jacob K. Goeree & Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal & John L. Turner, 2005. "How (Not) to Raise Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 897-926, August.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Gallice, 2010. "Price Reveal Auctions on the Internet," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 147, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    2. Ricardo Gonçalves & Miguel A. Fonseca, 2016. "Learning through Simultaneous Play: Evidence from Penny Auctions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 1040-1059, December.
    3. Miroslav Svoboda & Petr Bocák, 2013. "Curiosity of Pay-Per-Bid Auctions: Evidence from Bonus.cz Auction Site," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(3), pages 418-432.
    4. Marco Scarsini & Eilon Solan & Nicolas Vieille, 2010. "Lowest Unique Bid Auctions," Papers 1007.4264, arXiv.org.
    5. Wang, Zhongmin & Xu, Minbo, 2013. "Selling a Dollar for More Than a Dollar? Evidence from Online Penny Auctions," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-15, Resources for the Future.
    6. Yumiko Baba, 2013. "A Note On Dutch Auctions With Time Credits," Working Papers e053, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Penny auctions; Internet auctions; Bid fees; Gambling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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