IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/4876.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How to Win Twice at an Auction: On the Incidence of Commissions in Auction Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Ginsburgh, Victor
  • Sahuguet, Nicolas

Abstract

We analyse the welfare consequences of an increase in the commissions charged by intermediaries in auction markets. We argue that while commissions are similar to taxes imposed on buyers and sellers the question of incidence deserves a new treatment in auction markets. We show that an increase in commissions makes sellers worse off, but buyers may strictly gain. The results are therefore strikingly different from the standard result that all consumers weakly lose after a tax or a commission increase. Our results are useful for evaluating compensation in price fixing conspiracies; in particular they suggest that the method used to distribute compensations in the class action against auction houses Christie?s and Sotheby?s was misguided.

Suggested Citation

  • Ginsburgh, Victor & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2005. "How to Win Twice at an Auction: On the Incidence of Commissions in Auction Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 4876, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4876
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP4876
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glenn Ellison & Drew Fudenberg, 2003. "Knife-Edge or Plateau: When Do Market Models Tip?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1249-1278.
    2. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2003. "Chicken & Egg: Competition among Intermediation Service Providers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 309-328, Summer.
    3. Krishna, Vijay, 2009. "Auction Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 2, number 9780123745071.
    4. Burguet, Roberto & Sakovics, Jozsef, 1999. "Imperfect Competition in Auction Designs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(1), pages 231-247, February.
    5. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans, 1987. "On Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(6), pages 763-770, June.
    6. Orley Ashenfelter & Kathryn Graddy, 2003. "Auctions and the Price of Art," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 763-787, September.
    7. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June.
    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. Grigory Franguridi, 2014. "Higher order conditional moment dynamics and forecasting value-at-risk (in Russian)," Quantile, Quantile, issue 12, pages 69-82, February.
    2. Orley Ashenfelter & Kathryn Graddy, 2005. "Anatomy of the Rise and Fall of a Price-Fixing Conspiracy: Auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 3-20.
    3. repec:pri:cepsud:102ashenfelter is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Orley Ashenfelter & Kathryn Graddy, 2005. "Anatomy of the Rise and Fall of a Price-Fixing Conspiracy: Auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 3-20.

    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. Ginsburgh, Victor & Legros, Patrick & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2010. "On the incidence of commissions in auction markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 639-644, November.
    2. Deltas, George & Jeitschko, Thomas D., 2007. "Auction hosting site pricing and market equilibrium with endogenous bidder and seller participation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1190-1212, December.
    3. Glenn Ellison & Drew Fudenberg & Markus Möbius, 2004. "Competing Auctions," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 30-66, March.
    4. Jennifer Brown & John Morgan, 2009. "How Much Is a Dollar Worth? Tipping versus Equilibrium Coexistence on Competing Online Auction Sites," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 668-700, August.
    5. Heiko Karle & Martin Peitz & Markus Reisinger, 2020. "Segmentation versus Agglomeration: Competition between Platforms with Competitive Sellers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2329-2374.
    6. Jonathan Levin, 2011. "The Economics of Internet Markets," Discussion Papers 10-018, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David Ronayne, 2021. "Price Comparison Websites," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1081-1110, August.
    9. Mathias Dewatripont & Victor Ginsburgh & Patrick Legros & Alexis Walckiers & Jean-Pierre Devroey & Marianne Dujardin & Françoise Vandooren & Pierre Dubois & Jérôme Foncel & Marc Ivaldi & Marie-Dominiq, 2006. "Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9545, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Paul Belleflamme & Eric Toulemonde, 2009. "Negative Intra-Group Externalities In Two-Sided Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 245-272, February.
    11. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2019. "Managing competition on a two‐sided platform," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 5-22, January.
    12. Alexander Matros & Andriy Zapechelnyuk, 2010. "Competition of E-Commerce Intermediaries," Working Papers 675, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    13. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2003. "On second-price auctions and imperfect competition," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 901-909, November.
    14. Renato Gomes & Alessandro Pavan, 2013. "Cross-Subsidization and Matching Design," Discussion Papers 1559, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    15. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Georg Kirchsteiger & Markus Walzl, 2010. "On the Evolution of Market Institutions: The Platform Design Paradox," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 215-243, March.
    17. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose L. & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2011. "Comparison sites," IESE Research Papers D/933, IESE Business School.
      • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2011. "Comparison Sites," Working Papers 2011-04, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    18. Bruno Jullien, 2005. "Two-sided Markets and Electronic Intermediaries," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 51(2-3), pages 233-260.
    19. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    20. Doh-Shin Jeon & Nikrooz Nasr, 2016. "News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 91-114, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auctions; Intermediation; Commissions; Welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General

    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:cpr:ceprdp:4876. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.