IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v127y2012i2p793-827.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The CMS Auction: Experimental Studies of a Median-Bid Procurement Auction with Nonbinding Bids

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Merlob
  • Charles R. Plott
  • Yuanjun Zhang

Abstract

We report on the experimental results of simple auctions with (i) a median-bid pricing rule and (ii) nonbinding bids (winning bids can be withdrawn)--the two central pillars of the competitive bidding program designed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Comparisons between the performance of the CMS auction and the performance of the excluded-bid auction reveal the problematic nature of the CMS auction. The CMS auction fails to generate competitive prices of goods and fails to satisfy demand. In all proposed efficiency measures, we find the excluded-bid auction significantly outperforms the CMS auction. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Merlob & Charles R. Plott & Yuanjun Zhang, 2012. "The CMS Auction: Experimental Studies of a Median-Bid Procurement Auction with Nonbinding Bids," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 793-827.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:127:y:2012:i:2:p:793-827
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjs013
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Tan, Lijia & Wei, Lijia, 2020. "Evaluating car license auction mechanisms: Theory and experimental evidence," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. John Kautter & Gregory Pope, 2014. "Competitive bidding for Medicare Part B clinical laboratory services," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 95-108, June.
    3. Peter Cramton & Sean Ellermeyer & Brett Katzman, 2015. "Designed To Fail: The Medicare Auction For Durable Medical Equipment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 469-485, January.
    4. Vincenzo Atella & Francesco Decarolis, 2019. "Procuring Medical Devices: Evidence from Italian Public Tenders," CEIS Research Paper 472, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 10 Oct 2019.
    5. Camerer, Colin & Dreber, Anna & Forsell, Eskil & Ho, Teck-Hua & Huber, Jurgen & Johannesson, Magnus & Kirchler, Michael & Almenberg, Johan & Altmejd, Adam & Chan, Taizan & Heikensten, Emma & Holzmeist, 2016. "Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in Economics," MPRA Paper 75461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Andrew Stocking & James Baumgardner & Melinda Buntin & Anna Cook, 2014. "Assessing the Design of the Low-Income Subsidy Program in Medicare Part D: Working Paper 2014-07," Working Papers 49451, Congressional Budget Office.
    7. Lijia Tan & Lijia Wei, 2014. "Car License Auction: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 1401, Xiamen Unversity, The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Finance and Economics Experimental Laboratory, revised 02 Sep 2014.
    8. Anthony M. Kwasnica & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2013. "Multiunit Auctions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 461-490, July.
    9. Sotiris Georganas & Dan Levin & Peter McGee, 2017. "Optimistic irrationality and overbidding in private value auctions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 772-792, December.
    10. Wei-Shiun Chang & Bo Chen & Timothy C. Salmon, 2015. "An Investigation of the Average Bid Mechanism for Procurement Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1237-1254, June.

    More about this item

    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:oup:qjecon:v:127:y:2012:i:2:p:793-827. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.