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Buy-it-now or Take-a-chance: Price Discrimination through Randomized Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • L. Elisa Celis
  • Gregory Lewis
  • Markus M. Mobius
  • Hamid Nazerzadeh

Abstract

Increasingly detailed consumer information makes sophisticated price discrimination possible. At fine levels of aggregation, demand may not obey standard regularity conditions. We propose a new randomized sales mechanism for such environments. Bidders can "buy-it-now" at a posted price, or "take-a-chance" in an auction where the top d > 1 bidders are equally likely to win. The randomized allocation incentivizes high valuation bidders to buy-it-now. We analyze equilibrium behavior, and apply our analysis to advertiser bidding data from Microsoft Advertising Exchange. In counterfactual simulations, our mechanism increases revenue by 4.4% and consumer surplus by 14.5% compared to an optimal second-price auction.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Elisa Celis & Gregory Lewis & Markus M. Mobius & Hamid Nazerzadeh, 2012. "Buy-it-now or Take-a-chance: Price Discrimination through Randomized Auctions," NBER Working Papers 18590, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18590
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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