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Sealed Bid Auctions vs. Ascending Bid Auctions: An Experimental Study

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Andersson, Tommy

    ()

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

  • Andersson, Christer

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

  • Andersson, Ola

    ()

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper considers the sealed bid and ascending auction, which both identifies the minimum Walrasian equilibrium prices and where truthful preference revelation constitutes an equilibrium. Even though these auction formats share many theoretical properties, there are behavioral aspects that are not easily captured. To explore this issue in more detail, this paper experimentally investigates what role the design of the auction format has for its outcome. The results suggest that the sealed bid mechanism performs weakly better in all of investigated measures (consistent reporting, efficiency etc.). In addition, we find that the performance of the ascending auction is increasing over time, whereas the sealed bid auction shows no such tendency.

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File URL: http://project.nek.lu.se/publications/workpap/papers/WP10_17.pdf
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Paper provided by Lund University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 2010:17.

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Length: 10 pages
Date of creation: 17 Dec 2010
Publication status: Published as Andersson, Tommy, Christer Andersson and Ola Andersson, 'Sealed Bid Auctions vs. Ascending Bid Auctions: An Experimental Study' in Review of Economic Design, 2013, pages 1-16.
Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2010_017
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Box 7082, S-220 07 Lund,Sweden

Phone: +46 +46 222 0000
Fax: +46 +46 2224613
Web page: http://www.nek.lu.se/en

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Keywords: Auctions; Non-manipulability; Efficiency; Experiments;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
  • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

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  1. Tommy Andersson & Christer Andersson, 2012. "Properties of the DGS-Auction Algorithm," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 39(2), pages 113-133, February.
  2. de Vries, Sven & Schummer, James & Vohra, Rakesh V., 2007. "On ascending Vickrey auctions for heterogeneous objects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 95-118, January.
  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. Demange, Gabrielle & Gale, David & Sotomayor, Marilda, 1986. "Multi-Item Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 863-872, August.
  5. Demange, Gabrielle & Gale, David, 1985. "The Strategy Structure of Two-sided Matching Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(4), pages 873-888, July.
  6. Olson, Mark & Porter, David, 1994. "An Experimental Examination into the Design of Decentralized Methods to Solve the Assignment Problem with and without Money," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(1), pages 11-40, January.
  7. Mishra, Debasis & Parkes, David C., 2007. "Ascending price Vickrey auctions for general valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 335-366, January.
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Cited by:

  1. Anthony M. Kwasnica & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2013. "Multiunit Auctions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 461-490, 07.

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