IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reecde/v16y2012i2p159-173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavioral mechanism design: evidence from the modified first-price auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Yusufcan Masatlioglu
  • Sarah Taylor
  • Neslihan Uler

Abstract

This paper tests the behavioral equivalence of a class of strategically-equivalent mechanisms that also do not differ in terms of their procedures. In a private value setting, we introduce a family of mechanisms, so-called Mechanism (α), that generalizes the standard first-price sealed-bid auction. In Mechanism (α), buyers are asked to submit a value which will then be multiplied by α to calculate the bids in the auction. When α = 1, Mechanism (α) is the standard first-price sealed-bid auction. We show that for any α, calculated bids should be identical across mechanisms. We conduct a laboratory experiment to test the behavioral equivalence of this class of mechanisms under different values of α. Even though the procedure and environment do not change across auctions, we do not observe the same bidding behavior across these strategically-equivalent mechanisms. Our research can inform mechanism design literature with respect to the design of optimal mechanisms. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Sarah Taylor & Neslihan Uler, 2012. "Behavioral mechanism design: evidence from the modified first-price auctions," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 159-173, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:16:y:2012:i:2:p:159-173
    DOI: 10.1007/s10058-012-0123-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10058-012-0123-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10058-012-0123-9?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. Kagel, John H. & Levin, Dan, 2009. "Implementing efficient multi-object auction institutions: An experimental study of the performance of boundedly rational agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 221-237, May.
    2. R. Isaac & Duncan James, 2000. "Robustness of the Incentive Compatible Combinatorial Auction," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(1), pages 31-53, June.
    3. Attiyeh, Greg & Franciosi, Robert & Isaac, R Mark, 2000. "Experiments with the Pivot Process for Providing Public Goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 102(1-2), pages 95-114, January.
    4. Krishna, Vijay, 2009. "Auction Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 2, number 9780123745071.
    5. Cox, James C & Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1985. "Experimental Development of Sealed-Bid Auction Theory: Calibrating Controls for Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 160-165, May.
    6. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    7. Coppinger, Vicki M & Smith, Vernon L & Titus, Jon A, 1980. "Incentives and Behavior in English, Dutch and Sealed-Bid Auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(1), pages 1-22, January.
    8. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    9. Elena Katok & Anthony Kwasnica, 2008. "Time is money: The effect of clock speed on seller’s revenue in Dutch auctions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(4), pages 344-357, December.
    10. Daniel McFadden, 2009. "The human side of mechanism design: a tribute to Leo Hurwicz and Jean-Jacque Laffont," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, April.
    11. Cox, James C. & Smith, Vernon L. & Walker, James M., 1982. "Auction market theory of heterogeneous bidders," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 319-325.
    12. David Lucking-Reiley, 1999. "Using Field Experiments to Test Equivalence between Auction Formats: Magic on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1063-1080, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Theodore Turocy & Elizabeth Watson & Raymond Battalio, 2007. "Framing the first-price auction," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(1), pages 37-51, March.
    15. Paul J. Healy & Sera Linardi & J. Richard Lowery & John O. Ledyard, 2010. "Prediction Markets: Alternative Mechanisms for Complex Environments with Few Traders," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 1977-1996, November.
    16. ,, 2011. "First-price auctions, Dutch auctions, and buy-it-now-prices with Allais paradox bidders," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(3), September.
    17. Healy, Paul J., 2006. "Learning dynamics for mechanism design: An experimental comparison of public goods mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 114-149, July.
    18. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    19. Matthew O. Jackson, 2001. "A crash course in implementation theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(4), pages 655-708.
    20. Cox, James C. & Smith, Vernon L. & Walker, James M., 1983. "Tests of a heterogeneous bidders theory of first price auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(3-4), pages 207-212.
    21. Paul Healy & John Ledyard & Charles Noussair & Harley Thronson & Peter Ulrich & Giulio Varsi, 2007. "Contracting inside an organization: An experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 143-167, June.
    22. Kawagoe, Toshiji & Mori, Toru, 2001. "Can the Pivotal Mechanism Induce Truth-Telling? An Experimental Study," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(3-4), pages 331-354, September.
    23. Cox, James C & Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1988. "Theory and Individual Behavior of First-Price Auctions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 61-99, March.
    24. Emel Filiz-Ozbay & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2007. "Auctions with Anticipated Regret: Theory and Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1407-1418, September.
    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. Filippin, Antonio & Crosetto, Paolo, 2014. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 8184, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Blume, Andreas & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2023. "Mediated talk: An experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    3. Grüner, Hans Peter & Engelmann, Dirk, 2013. "Tailored Bayesian Mechanisms: Experimental Evidence from Two-Stage Voting Games," CEPR Discussion Papers 9544, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Antonio Filippin & Paolo Crosetto, 2016. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3138-3160, November.

    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. Sascha Füllbrunn & Dirk‐Jan Janssen & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Risk Aversion And Overbidding In First Price Sealed Bid Auctions: New Experimental Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 631-647, January.
    2. Oliver Kirchkamp & Wladislaw Mill, 2019. "Spite vs. risk: explaining overbidding," CESifo Working Paper Series 7631, CESifo.
    3. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Mill, Wladislaw, 2021. "Spite vs. risk: Explaining overbidding in the second-price all-pay auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 616-635.
    4. Fugger, Nicolas & Gillen, Philippe & Rasch, Alexander & Zeppenfeld, Christopher, 2016. "Preferences and Decision Support in Competitive Bidding," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145849, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Wedad J. Elmaghraby & Elena Katok & Natalia Santamaría, 2012. "A Laboratory Investigation of Rank Feedback in Procurement Auctions," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 128-144, January.
    6. Brunner, Christoph & Hu, Audrey & Oechssler, Jörg, 2014. "Premium auctions and risk preferences: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 467-484.
    7. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Seres, Gyula, 2021. "Are strategies anchored?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    8. Cason, Timothy N. & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Sjostrom, Tomas & Yamato, Takehiko, 2006. "Secure implementation experiments: Do strategy-proof mechanisms really work?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 206-235, November.
    9. Jason Shachat & Lijia Tan, 2015. "An Experimental Investigation of Auctions and Bargaining in Procurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(5), pages 1036-1051, May.
    10. Pearson, Matthew & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Menstrual cycle and competitive bidding," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-20.
    11. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. 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.
    13. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2008. "Revenue equivalence revisited," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 171-192, September.
    14. Vasserman, Shoshana & Watt, Mitchell, 2021. "Risk aversion and auction design: Theoretical and empirical evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Balzer, Benjamin & Rosato, Antonio & von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2022. "Dutch vs. first-price auctions with expectations-based loss-averse bidders," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    16. Takehito Masuda & Ryo Mikami & Toyotaka Sakai & Shigehiro Serizawa & Takuma Wakayama, 2020. "The net effect of advice on strategy-proof mechanisms: An experiment for the Vickrey auction," ISER Discussion Paper 1109r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised May 2021.
    17. Neugebauer, Tibor & Selten, Reinhard, 2006. "Individual behavior of first-price auctions: The importance of information feedback in computerized experimental markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 183-204, January.
    18. McGee, Peter, 2013. "Bidding in private-value auctions with uncertain values," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 312-326.
    19. Paul Pezanis-Christou & Andres Romeu, 2002. "Structural Inferences from First-Price Auction Experiments," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 531.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    20. Cary Deck & Bart J. Wilson, 2020. "Auctions in near-continuous time," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 110-126, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mechanism design; Auction; Laboratory experiment; C92; D02; D03; D44;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    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:spr:reecde:v:16:y:2012:i:2:p:159-173. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.