IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/xrs/sfbmaa/07-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uniform vs. Discriminatory Auctions with Variable Supply - Experimental Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Damianov, Damian S.

    (The University of Texas-Pan American)

  • Oechssler, Jörg

    (Department of Economics, University of Heidelberg)

  • Becker, Johannes Gerd

    (ETH Zurich, Department of Economics)

Abstract

In the variable supply auction considered here, the seller decides how many costumers with unit demand to serve after observing their bids. Bidders are uncertain about the seller's cost. We experimentally investigate whether a uniform or a discriminatory price auction is better for the seller in this setting. Exactly as predicted by theory, it turns out that the uniform price auction produces substantially higher bids, and consequently yields higher revenues and profits for the seller. Somewhat surprisingly but again predicted by theory, it also yields a higher number of transactions, which makes it the more efficient auction format.

Suggested Citation

  • Damianov, Damian S. & Oechssler, Jörg & Becker, Johannes Gerd, 2007. "Uniform vs. Discriminatory Auctions with Variable Supply - Experimental Evidence," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 07-68, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    • Handle: RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:07-68
    Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/publications/dp07-68.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rassenti, Stephen J & Smith, Vernon L & Wilson, Bart J, 2003. "Discriminatory Price Auctions in Electricity Markets: Low Volatility at the Expense of High Price Levels," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 109-123, March.
    2. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    3. Damianov, Damian S. & Becker, Johannes Gerd, 2010. "Auctions with variable supply: Uniform price versus discriminatory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 571-593, May.
    4. Damianov, Damian S., 2005. "Erratum to "The uniform price auction with endogenous supply" [Econ. Lett. 88 (2005) 152-158]," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 133-133, October.
    5. Timothy N. Cason & Lata Gangadharan, 2005. "A Laboratory Comparison of Uniform and Discriminative Price Auctions for Reducing Non-point Source Pollution," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(1).
    6. David Lucking-Reiley & John A. List, 2000. "Demand Reduction in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from a Sportscard Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 961-972, September.
    7. Yvan Lengwiler, 1999. "The multiple unit auction with variable supply," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 14(2), pages 373-392.
    8. Jaime F. Zender & James J.D. Wang, 2002. "Auctioning divisible goods," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 19(4), pages 673-705.
    9. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680, Decembrie.
    10. Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi & Pezanis-Christou, Paul, 2006. "Auctions for government securities: A laboratory comparison of uniform, discriminatory and Spanish designs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 284-303, October.
    11. Motty Perry & Philip J. Reny, 1999. "On The Failure of the Linkage Principle in Multi-Unit Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 895-900, July.
    12. Busaba, Walid Y. & Benveniste, Lawrence M. & Guo, Re-Jin, 2001. "The option to withdraw IPOs during the premarket: empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 73-102, April.
    13. McAdams, David, 2007. "Adjustable supply in uniform price auctions: Non-commitment as a strategic tool," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 48-53, April.
    14. Back, Kerry & Zender, Jaime F., 2001. "Auctions of divisible goods with endogenous supply," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 29-34, October.
    15. Matti Keloharju & Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist, 2005. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1865-1902, August.
    16. Colin Loxley & David Salant, 2004. "Default Service Auctions," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 201-229, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Pearce, David G, 1984. "Rationalizable Strategic Behavior and the Problem of Perfection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 1029-1050, July.
    19. Orly Sade & Charles Schnitzlein & Jaime Zender, 2006. "Competition and cooperation in divisible good auctions: An experimental examination," Artefactual Field Experiments 00105, The Field Experiments Website.
    20. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    21. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    22. Orly Sade & Charles Schnitzlein & Jaime F. Zender, 2006. "Competition and Cooperation in Divisible Good Auctions: An Experimental Examination," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 195-235.
    23. Ulrich Schmidt & Stefan Traub (ed.), 2005. "Advances in Public Economics: Utility, Choice and Welfare," Theory and Decision Library C, Springer, number 978-0-387-25706-8, March.
    24. Umlauf, Steven R., 1993. "An empirical study of the Mexican Treasury bill auction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 313-340, June.
    25. Damianov, Damian S., 2005. "The uniform price auction with endogenous supply," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 152-158, August.
    26. Milgrom, Paul, 1989. "Auctions and Bidding: A Primer," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    27. Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist & Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2002. "Bidder Behavior in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from Swedish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 394-424, April.
    28. Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi & McDaniel, Tanga, 2003. "Asymmetric Demand Information in Uniform and Discriminatory Call Auctions: An Experimental Analysis Motivated by Electricity Markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 125-144, March.
    29. Nyborg, Kjell G. & Sundaresan, Suresh, 1996. "Discriminatory versus uniform Treasury auctions: Evidence from when-issued transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 63-104, September.
    30. repec:feb:framed:0052 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Beetsma, Roel & Giuliodori, Massimo & de Jong, Frank & Widijanto, Daniel, 2016. "Price effects of sovereign debt auctions in the euro-zone: The role of the crisis," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 30-53.
    2. Damianov, Damian S. & Becker, Johannes Gerd, 2010. "Auctions with variable supply: Uniform price versus discriminatory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 571-593, May.
    3. Sirin, Selahattin Murat & Erten, Ibrahim, 2022. "Price spikes, temporary price caps, and welfare effects of regulatory interventions on wholesale electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    4. Metzger, Lars Peter, 2014. "Invader strategies in the war of attrition with private information," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 160-166.
    5. Hummel, Patrick, 2016. "Position auctions with dynamic resizing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 38-46.
    6. Anthony M. Kwasnica & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2013. "Multiunit Auctions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 461-490, July.
    7. Fabra, Natalia & Montero, Juan Pablo, 2020. "Technology-Neutral vs. Technology-Specific Procurement," CEPR Discussion Papers 15554, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. repec:awi:wpaper:0460 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Damianov, Damian S. & Becker, Johannes Gerd, 2010. "Auctions with variable supply: Uniform price versus discriminatory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 571-593, May.
    3. Mariño, Eduardo Anthony G. & Marszalec, Daniel, 2023. "Strategic supply management and mechanism choice in government debt auctions: An empirical analysis from the Philippines," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Shenghao Gao & Peyman Khezr & Armin Pourkhanali, 2024. "Uniform price auctions with pre-announced revenue targets: Evidence from China's SEOs," Papers 2410.00063, arXiv.org.
    5. Bennouri, Moez & Gimpel, Henner & Robert, Jacques, 2011. "Measuring the impact of information aggregation mechanisms: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 302-318, May.
    6. Monostori, Zoltán, 2013. "Diszkriminatív áras és egyenáras aukciók [Discriminatory and uniform-price auctions]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1048-1074.
    7. Raphaële Préget, 2004. "Adjudications des valeurs du Trésor," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 63-110.
    8. Ranaldo, Angelo & Rossi, Enzo, 2016. "Uniform-price Auctions for Swiss Government Bonds: Origin and Evolution," Working Papers on Finance 1609, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    9. Haoran He & Yefeng Chen, 2021. "Auction mechanisms for allocating subsidies for carbon emissions reduction: an experimental investigation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 387-430, August.
    10. Cumpston, Anne & Khezr, Peyman, 2020. "Multi-Unit Auctions: A Survey of Theoretical Literature," MPRA Paper 101336, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi & Pezanis-Christou, Paul, 2006. "Auctions for government securities: A laboratory comparison of uniform, discriminatory and Spanish designs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 284-303, October.
    12. Zhuo Hu & Dong Huang & Congjun Rao & Xiaolin Xu, 2016. "Innovative allocation mechanism design of carbon emission permits in China under the background of a low-carbon economy," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 43(2), pages 419-434, March.
    13. McAdams, David, 2007. "Adjustable supply in uniform price auctions: Non-commitment as a strategic tool," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 48-53, April.
    14. Khezr, Peyman & MacKenzie, Ian A., 2018. "Permit market auctions with allowance reserves," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 283-306.
    15. Rocholl, Jörg, 2005. "Discriminatory auctions with seller discretion: evidence from German treasury auctions," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,15, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Peyman Khezr & Anne Cumpston, 2022. "A review of multiunit auctions with homogeneous goods," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1225-1247, September.
    17. Matti Keloharju & Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist, 2005. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1865-1902, August.
    18. Ping Zhang, 2009. "Characterization of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Uniform Price IPO Auctions," Discussion Papers 2009-05, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    19. Eduardo Anthony G. Marino III & Daniel Marszalec, 2020. "Auction Performance, Strategic Supply Management, and Bidder Behavior in Treasury Bill Auctions: Evidence from the Philippines," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1138, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    20. Song Han & Dan Li, 2010. "The fragility of discretionary liquidity provision - lessons from the collapse of the auction rate securities market," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-50, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Martin Sefton & Ping Zhang, 2014. "Divisible-good uniform price auctions: The role of allocation rules and communication among bidders," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experiments in Financial Economics, volume 16, pages 53-86, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    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:xrs:sfbmaa:07-68. 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: Carsten Schmidt The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Carsten Schmidt to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfmande.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.