IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v49y2003i11p1504-1520.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Costly Bidding in Online Markets for IT Services

Author

Listed:
  • Eli M. Snir

    (Southern Methodist University, Cox School of Business, Dallas, Texas 75275-0333)

  • Lorin M. Hitt

    (University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

Abstract

Internet-enabled markets are becoming viable venues for procurement of professional services. We investigate bidding behavior within the most active area of these early knowledge markets---the market for software development. These markets are important both because they provide an early view of the effectiveness of online service markets and because they have a potentially large impact on how software development services are procured and provided. Using auction theory, we develop a theoretical model that relates market characteristics to bidding and transaction behavior, taking into account costly bidding. We then test our model using data from an active online market for software development services, which yields contracts for 30%--40% of posted projects. In its current format, however, the studied market may induce excessive bidding by vendors. Consistent with our theoretical predictions and those of Carr (2003), higher-value projects attract significantly more bids, with lower average quality. Greater numbers of bids raise the cost to all participants, due to costly bidding and bid evaluation. Perhaps as a consequence, higher-value projects are also much less likely to be awarded.

Suggested Citation

  • Eli M. Snir & Lorin M. Hitt, 2003. "Costly Bidding in Online Markets for IT Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1504-1520, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:11:p:1504-1520
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.49.11.1504.20587
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.49.11.1504.20587
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.49.11.1504.20587?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim, 1980. "Dealership market : Market-making with inventory," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 31-53, March.
    2. Samuelson, William F., 1985. "Competitive bidding with entry costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 53-57.
    3. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2003. "The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1407-1424, October.
    4. Riley, John G & Samuelson, William F, 1981. "Optimal Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 381-392, June.
    5. Lucking-Reiley, David, 2000. "Auctions on the Internet: What's Being Auctioned, and How?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 227-252, September.
    6. Maskin, Eric S & Riley, John G, 1984. "Optimal Auctions with Risk Averse Buyers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1473-1518, November.
    7. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    8. Dellarocas, Chrysanthos, 2003. "The Digitization of Word-of-mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Working papers 4296-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    9. Milgrom, Paul, 1989. "Auctions and Bidding: A Primer," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    10. Scott M. Carr, 2003. "Note on Online Auctions with Costly Bid Evaluation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1521-1528, November.
    11. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    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. Roberto Burguet, 2000. "Auction theory: a guided tour," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(1), pages 3-50, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Ravi Bapna & Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Sarah Rice, 2010. "Vertically Differentiated Simultaneous Vickrey Auctions: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(7), pages 1074-1092, July.
    4. Judy E. Scott & Dawn G. Gregg & Jae Hoon Choi, 2015. "Lemon complaints: When online auctions go sour," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 177-191, February.
    5. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Matthew J. Clayton & S. Abraham Ravid, 1999. "The Effect of Leverage on Bidding Behavior: Theory and Evidence from the FCC Auctions," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-055, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    7. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2008. "Revenue equivalence revisited," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 171-192, September.
    8. Xu, Xiaoshu & Levin, Dan & Ye, Lixin, 2013. "Auctions with entry and resale," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 92-105.
    9. Kagel, John & Pevnitskaya, Svetlana & Ye, Lixin, 2008. "Indicative bidding: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 697-721, March.
    10. Nombela, Gustavo & de Rus, Ginés, 2004. "Flexible-term contracts for road franchising," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 163-179, March.
    11. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and game theory. A 70th anniversary," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 1-7.
    12. Lu, Jingfeng & Ye, Lixin, 2013. "Efficient and optimal mechanisms with private information acquisition costs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 393-408.
    13. Isabel Amigo & Pablo Belzarena & Sandrine Vaton, 2013. "A pricing scheme for QoS in overlay networks based on first-price auctions and reimbursement," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 69-93, November.
    14. Gustavo Vulcano & Garrett van Ryzin & Costis Maglaras, 2002. "Optimal Dynamic Auctions for Revenue Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(11), pages 1388-1407, November.
    15. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    16. Hubbard, Timothy P. & Paarsch, Harry J., 2009. "Investigating bid preferences at low-price, sealed-bid auctions with endogenous participation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-14, January.
    17. Ye, Lixin, 2007. "Indicative bidding and a theory of two-stage auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 181-207, January.
    18. Laurent Lamy, 2013. "“Upping the ante”: how to design efficient auctions with entry?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(2), pages 194-214, June.
    19. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    20. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Zou, Liang, 2011. "Premium auctions and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2420-2439.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:11:p:1504-1520. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.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.