IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v71y2020ics0167718720300473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal reserve prices in sealed-bid auctions with reference effects

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yanhai

Abstract

The reference effect and loss aversion are incorporated into the buyer’s utility in the symmetric independent private value models of sealed-bid auctions. The buyer’s equilibrium bidding strategy and the seller’s optimal reserve price are derived for the first-price and second-price sealed-bid auctions. In both auction mechanisms, the seller’s optimal reserve price and expected revenue are increasing in the reference point. We compare the seller’s expected revenues as well as the optimal reserve prices in the two auctions. The results show that the seller will set a higher optimal reserve price but obtain lower optimal expected revenue in the second-price auction compared to the first-price auction. Further, we extend the model to the gain-seeking case, and endogenize the reference point as the ex-ante expected price of the item in equilibrium. In contrast to the loss-averse case, the seller will set a lower optimal reserve price but obtain higher optimal expected revenue in the second-price auction compared to the first-price auction if the buyers are gain-seeking. With an endogenous reference point, similar results are obtained in terms of revenue comparison between the two auctions.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yanhai, 2020. "Optimal reserve prices in sealed-bid auctions with reference effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:71:y:2020:i:c:s0167718720300473
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2020.102624
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718720300473
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2020.102624?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephanie Rosenkranz & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2007. "Reserve Prices in Auctions as Reference Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 637-653, April.
    2. Audrey Hu & Steven A. Matthews & Liang Zou, 2009. "Risk Aversion and Optimal Reserve Prices in First and Second-Price Auctions, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 10-001, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 03 Jan 2010.
    3. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    4. Jonathan Shalev, 2000. "Loss aversion equilibrium," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 29(2), pages 269-287.
    5. Riley, John G & Samuelson, William F, 1981. "Optimal Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 381-392, June.
    6. Matthews, Steven, 1987. "Comparing Auctions for Risk Averse Buyers: A Buyer's Point of View," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 633-646, May.
    7. Janssen, Maarten C.W. & Karamychev, Vladimir A., 2009. "Auctions, aftermarket competition, and risk attitudes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 274-285, March.
    8. Andreas Roider & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2012. "Auctions with Anticipated Emotions: Overbidding, Underbidding, and Optimal Reserve Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 808-830, September.
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    11. Maskin, Eric S & Riley, John G, 1984. "Optimal Auctions with Risk Averse Buyers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1473-1518, November.
    12. Wang, Charles X. & Webster, Scott, 2009. "The loss-averse newsvendor problem," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 93-105, February.
    13. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1996. "Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1271-1283, September.
    14. Ahmad, Husnain Fateh, 2015. "Endogenous price expectations as reference points in auctions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 46-63.
    15. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1981. "Allocation Mechanisms and the Design of Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1477-1499, November.
    16. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    17. Martin A. Lariviere, 2006. "A Note on Probability Distributions with Increasing Generalized Failure Rates," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 602-604, June.
    18. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions and Bidding," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 699-738, June.
    19. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    20. Hu, Audrey & Matthews, Steven A. & Zou, Liang, 2010. "Risk aversion and optimal reserve prices in first- and second-price auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1188-1202, May.
    21. Donald M. Topkis, 1978. "Minimizing a Submodular Function on a Lattice," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(2), pages 305-321, April.
    22. Xin Chen & Peng Hu & Zhenyu Hu, 2017. "Efficient Algorithms for the Dynamic Pricing Problem with Reference Price Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4389-4406, December.
    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. Zhe Chen, 2021. "The multidimensional procurement auctions with reference‐based utility," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 319-325, March.
    2. Ziyi Tan & Shulin Liu, 2022. "The Generalized First- and Second-Price Auctions: Overbidding, Underbidding, and Optimal Reserve Price," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, January.

    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. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Zou, Liang, 2011. "Premium auctions and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2420-2439.
    2. Zhang, Yunyi & Gong, Pu, 2018. "IPV model with Cobb–Douglas and reference-dependent utility functions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 510(C), pages 121-131.
    3. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    4. Ziyi Tan & Shulin Liu, 2022. "The Generalized First- and Second-Price Auctions: Overbidding, Underbidding, and Optimal Reserve Price," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Atanu R. Sinha & Eric A. Greenleaf, 2000. "The Impact of Discrete Bidding and Bidder Aggressiveness on Sellers' Strategies in Open English Auctions: Reserves and Covert Shilling," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 244-265, May.
    6. Baisa, Brian, 2017. "Auction design without quasilinear preferences," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    7. Vasserman, Shoshana & Watt, Mitchell, 2021. "Risk aversion and auction design: Theoretical and empirical evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Hu, Audrey, 2011. "How bidder's number affects optimal reserve price in first-price auctions under risk aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 29-31, October.
    9. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    10. Hon-Snir, Shlomit & Monderer, Dov & Sela, Aner, 1998. "A Learning Approach to Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 65-88, September.
    11. Englmaier, Florian & Schmöller, Arno, 2010. "Determinants and Effects of Reserve Prices in Hattrick Auctions," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 326, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    12. Hannu Vartiainen, 2003. "Auction Design without Commitment," Working Papers 2003.24, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    13. Tomer Siedner, 2019. "Optimal pricing by a risk-averse seller," Discussion Paper Series dp725, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    14. Werner Güth & Radosveta Ivanova–Stenzel & Manfred Königstein & Martin Strobel, 2002. "Bid Functions in Auctions and Fair Division Games: Experimental Evidence," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(4), pages 461-484, November.
    15. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    16. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2016. "Optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 347-371.
    17. Kotowski, Maciej H., 2018. "On asymmetric reserve prices," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    18. Andreas Roider & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2012. "Auctions with Anticipated Emotions: Overbidding, Underbidding, and Optimal Reserve Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 808-830, September.
    19. Chakraborty, Indranil, 2019. "Simultaneous vs. sequential auctions with risk averse bidders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 209-222.
    20. Indranil Chakraborty, 2019. "Reserve Price Versus Entry Fee In Standard Auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 648-653, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sealed-bid auction; Reserve price; Reference effect; Loss aversion; Gain-seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:eee:indorg:v:71:y:2020:i:c:s0167718720300473. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505551 .

    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.