IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tsu/tewpjp/2010-009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Experimental Study of Bidding Behavior in Subcontract Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Jun Nakabayashi
  • Naoki Watanabe

Abstract

It is commonly observed in practices that prime contractors solicit subcontract bids, prior to submitting their bids in procurement auctions: the auctioneers in subcontract auctions will become bidders in a procurement auction. This point is remarkably different from the standard theory of procurement auction. We presented a simple model of such subcontract auctions and conducted a laboratory experiment to examine the bidding behavior derived theoretically. We observed that in the subcontract auction, (1) subjects bid following the equilibrium bidding function derived theoretically, (2) the revenue equivalence between first-price and second-price mechanisms breaks down, and (3) the first-price mechanism more likely achieves ex post efficient allocations than the second-price mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Jun Nakabayashi & Naoki Watanabe, 2010. "An Experimental Study of Bidding Behavior in Subcontract Auctions," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2010-009, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
    • Handle: RePEc:tsu:tewpjp:2010-009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://pepp.hass.tsukuba.ac.jp/RePEc/2010-009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hong, Chew Soo & Nishimura, Naoko, 2003. "Revenue non-equivalence between the English and the second-price auctions: experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 443-458, August.
    2. Andreoni, James & Che, Yeon-Koo & Kim, Jinwoo, 2007. "Asymmetric information about rivals' types in standard auctions: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 240-259, May.
    3. 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.
    4. Robert H. Porter & J. Douglas Zona, 1999. "Ohio School Milk Markets: An Analysis of Bidding," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 263-288, Summer.
    5. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Quantal Response Equilibrium and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 247-272, May.
    6. In Lee, 1999. "Non-cooperative Tacit Collusion, Complementary Bidding and Incumbency Premium," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 15(2), pages 115-134, September.
    7. Patrick Bajari & Lixin Ye, 2003. "Deciding Between Competition and Collusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 971-989, November.
    8. J. Reiß & Jens Schöndube, 2010. "First-price equilibrium and revenue equivalence in a sequential procurement auction model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 43(1), pages 99-141, April.
    9. Porter, Robert H & Zona, J Douglas, 1993. "Detection of Bid Rigging in Procurement Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 518-538, June.
    10. Lee, Joon-Suk, 2008. "Favoritism in asymmetric procurement auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1407-1424, November.
    11. Morgan John & Steiglitz Ken & Reis George, 2003. "The Spite Motive and Equilibrium Behavior in Auctions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-27, April.
    12. 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.
    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. In Lee, 1999. "Non-cooperative Tacit Collusion, Complementary Bidding and Incumbency Premium," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 15(2), pages 115-134, September.
    2. Rosa, Benjamin, 2016. "Subcontracting Requirements and the Cost of Government Procurement," MPRA Paper 77392, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. 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.
    2. Hiroshi Ohashi, 2009. "Effects of Transparency in Procurement Practices on Government Expenditure: A Case Study of Municipal Public Works," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 34(3), pages 267-285, May.
    3. Mats A. Bergman & Johan Lundberg & Sofia Lundberg & Johan Y. Stake, 2020. "Interactions Across Firms and Bid Rigging," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(1), pages 107-130, February.
    4. Bartling, Björn & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "An externality-robust auction: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 186-204.
    5. David Barrus & Frank Scott, 2020. "Single Bidders and Tacit Collusion in Highway Procurement Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 483-522, September.
    6. Oliver Kirchkamp & Wladislaw Mill, 2019. "Spite vs. risk: explaining overbidding," CESifo Working Paper Series 7631, CESifo.
    7. 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.
    8. Zachary Breig & Allan Hernández-Chanto & Declan Hunt, 2022. "Experimental Auctions with Securities," Discussion Papers Series 657, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    9. Tan, Charmaine H.Y., 2020. "Overbidding and matching rules in second-price auctions: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Timothy N. Cason & Karthik N. Kannan & Ralph Siebert, 2011. "An Experimental Study of Information Revelation Policies in Sequential Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(4), pages 667-688, April.
    11. Kirchkamp, O. & Reiss, J.P. & Sadrieh, A., 2008. "A pure variation of risk in private-value auctions," Research Memorandum 050, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    12. Mill, Wladislaw, 2017. "The spite motive in third price auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 71-73.
    13. Sascha Füllbrunn & Tibor Neugebauer, 2013. "Varying the number of bidders in the first-price sealed-bid auction: experimental evidence for the one-shot game," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(3), pages 421-447, September.
    14. Bergman, Mats A. & Lundberg, Johan & Lundberg, Sofia & Stake, Johan Y., 2015. "Using spatial econometrics to test for collusive behavior in procurement auction data," Umeå Economic Studies 917, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    15. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Mikhail Freer, 2018. "Equilibrium Play in First Price Auctions: Revealed Preference Analysis," Working Papers ECARES 2018-36, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Clark, Robert & Coviello, Decio & de Leverano, Adriano, 2020. "Complementary bidding and the collusive arrangement: Evidence from an antitrust investigation," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-052, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    17. Martin Huber & David Imhof & Rieko Ishii, 2022. "Transnational machine learning with screens for flagging bid‐rigging cartels," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(3), pages 1074-1114, July.
    18. Lange, Andreas & List, John A. & Price, Michael K., 2011. "Auctions with resale when private values are uncertain: Evidence from the lab and field," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 54-64, January.
    19. Paul Klemperer, 2007. "Bidding Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-47.
    20. Biran, Omer, 2011. "Core stable bidding rings in independent private value auctions with externalities," MPRA Paper 32164, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tsu:tewpjp:2010-009. 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: Yoshinori Kurokawa (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iptsujp.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.