Bidding Behaviour in Second-Price and Random Nth-Price Auctions with Interval Private Values

Bidding Behaviour in Second-Price and Random Nth-Price Auctions with Interval Private Values
Author: Prasenjit Banerjee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre:
ISBN:

When valuing market and non-market goods, using point estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) may generate biased results because people are often observed to have a range of acceptable values in mind. We investigate how individuals express their bids or WTP given uniform and skewed intervals of private values in the lab with two demand-revealing auction mechanisms -- a second-price auction and a random nth-price auction. The participants are allowed to bid in intervals. Since our participants face the risks of losing the auction and/or money due to uncertainties over private values and market price, we explore the effect of risk preferences on bidding behaviour. We find that (i) participants mostly bid in intervals; (ii) risk-averse participants prefer to bid in point estimates across the auction types; (iii) participants bid truthfully in the second-price auction given skewed interval values; (iv) the random nth-price auction, however, performs better than the second-price auction in extracting the true values given uniform interval values and left-skewed interval values, when we divide the skewed intervals into left- and right-skewed intervals; and (v) the mean of interval bids can be used to derive the demand for true WTP for a good with value uncertainty. We also find that risk-loving individuals overbid significantly, but risk preferences do not affect overall bidding behaviour.

Bounded Rationality and Behavioural Economics

Bounded Rationality and Behavioural Economics
Author: Graham Mallard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2015-08-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317653858

Economics Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon developed the concept of bounded rationality in the 1950s. This asserts that the cognitive abilities of human decision-makers are not always sufficient to find optimal solutions to complex real-life problems, leading decision-makers to find satisfactory, sub-optimal outcomes. This was a foundational component of the development of Behavioural Economics but in recent years the two fields have diverged, each with its own literature, its own approach and its own proponents. Behavioural Economics explores the areas of commonality between Economics and Psychology, in terms of its focus and its approach, whereas the bounded rationality literature largely analyses the implications of sub-optimal decision‐making through the mathematically sophisticated methodology of mainstream Economics. This book examines the nature and consequences of this divergence and questions whether this is a case of beneficial specialisation or whether it is unhelpful, potentially stunting the development of some aspects of Economics. It has been suggested that the major deficiency of Behavioural Economics is that it has failed to produce a single, widely applicable alternative to constrained optimisation. This book evaluates the extent to which this is the true and, if it is, the extent to which it is a product of the divergence between the two literatures. It also seeks to identify commonalities between the two subjects and suggests avenues of research in Economics that would benefit from a re-fusion of these two fields.

Game Theory and Behavior

Game Theory and Behavior
Author: Jeffrey Carpenter
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 725
Release: 2022-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0262371251

An introduction to game theory that offers not only theoretical tools but also the intuition and behavioral insights to apply these tools to real-world situations. This introductory text on game theory provides students with both the theoretical tools to analyze situations through the logic of game theory and the intuition and behavioral insights to apply these tools to real-world situations. It is unique among game theory texts in offering a clear, formal introduction to standard game theory while incorporating evidence from experimental data and introducing recent behavioral models. Students will not only learn about incentives, how to represent situations as games, and what agents “should” do in these situations, but they will also be presented with evidence that either confirms the theoretical assumptions or suggests a way in which the theory might be updated. Features: Each chapter begins with a motivating example that can be run as an experiment and ends with a discussion of the behavior in the example. Parts I–IV cover the fundamental “nuts and bolts” of any introductory game theory course, including the theory of games, simple games with simultaneous decision making by players, sequential move games, and incomplete information in simultaneous and sequential move games. Parts V–VII apply the tools developed in previous sections to bargaining, cooperative game theory, market design, social dilemmas, and social choice and voting. Part VIII offers a more in-depth discussion of behavioral game theory models including evolutionary and psychological game theory. Instructor resources include solutions to end-of-chapter exercises, worksheets for running each chapter's experimental games using pencil and paper, and the oTree codes for running the games online.

Price Information and Bidding Behavior in Repeated Second-Price Auctions

Price Information and Bidding Behavior in Repeated Second-Price Auctions
Author: John A. List
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

Examining panel data on bidding behavior in over forty second-price auction markets with repeated trials, we observe that (i) posted prices influence the behavior of the median naive bidder; (ii) posted prices do not affect the behavior of the median experienced bidder or the bidder for familiar goods; and (iii) anticipated strategic behavior wanes after two trials. The results suggest that while affiliation might exist in auctions for new goods, the repeated trial design with nonprice information removes the correlation of values and provides the experience that bidders need to understand the market mechanism.

Common Value Auctions and the Winner's Curse

Common Value Auctions and the Winner's Curse
Author: John H. Kagel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691218951

An invaluable account of how auctions work—and how to make them work Few forms of market exchange intrigue economists as do auctions, whose theoretical and practical implications are enormous. John Kagel and Dan Levin, complementing their own distinguished research with papers written with other specialists, provide a new focus on common value auctions and the "winner's curse." In such auctions the value of each item is about the same to all bidders, but different bidders have different information about the underlying value. Virtually all auctions have a common value element; among the burgeoning modern-day examples are those organized by Internet companies such as eBay. Winners end up cursing when they realize that they won because their estimates were overly optimistic, which led them to bid too much and lose money as a result. The authors first unveil a fresh survey of experimental data on the winner's curse. Melding theory with the econometric analysis of field data, they assess the design of government auctions, such as the spectrum rights (air wave) auctions that continue to be conducted around the world. The remaining chapters gauge the impact on sellers' revenue of the type of auction used and of inside information, show how bidders learn to avoid the winner's curse, and present comparisons of sophisticated bidders with college sophomores, the usual guinea pigs used in laboratory experiments. Appendixes refine theoretical arguments and, in some cases, present entirely new data. This book is an invaluable, impeccably up-to-date resource on how auctions work--and how to make them work.

Networks, Crowds, and Markets

Networks, Crowds, and Markets
Author: David Easley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 745
Release: 2010-07-19
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1139490303

Are all film stars linked to Kevin Bacon? Why do the stock markets rise and fall sharply on the strength of a vague rumour? How does gossip spread so quickly? Are we all related through six degrees of separation? There is a growing awareness of the complex networks that pervade modern society. We see them in the rapid growth of the internet, the ease of global communication, the swift spread of news and information, and in the way epidemics and financial crises develop with startling speed and intensity. This introductory book on the new science of networks takes an interdisciplinary approach, using economics, sociology, computing, information science and applied mathematics to address fundamental questions about the links that connect us, and the ways that our decisions can have consequences for others.

Understanding Overbidding in Second Price Auctions

Understanding Overbidding in Second Price Auctions
Author: David J. Cooper
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

This paper presents results from a series of second price private value auction (SPA) experiments in which bidders are either given for free, or are allowed to purchase, noisy signals about their opponents' value. Even though theoretically such information about opponents' value has no strategic use in the SPA, it provides us with a convenient instrument to change bidders' perception about the "strength" (i.e., the value) of their opponent. We argue that the empirical relationship between the incidence and magnitude of overbidding and bidders' perception of the strength of their opponent provides the key to understand whether overbidding in second price auctions are driven by "spite" motives or by the "joy of winning." The experimental data show that bidders are much more likely to overbid, though less likely to submit large overbid, when they perceive their rivals to have similar values as their own. We argue that this empirical relationship is more consistent with a modified "joy of winning" hypothesis than with the "spite" hypothesis. However, neither of the non-standard preference explanations are able to fully explain all aspects of the experimental data, and we argue for the important role of bounded rationality. We also find that bidder heterogeneity plays an important role in explaining their bidding behavior.

The Foundations of Behavioral Economic Analysis

The Foundations of Behavioral Economic Analysis
Author: Sanjit Dhami
Publisher:
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre:
ISBN: 0198847254

This fourth volume of The Foundations of Behavioral Economic Analysis covers behavioral game theory. It is an essential guide for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students seeking a concise and focused text on this important subject, and examines the evidence on classical game theory and several models of behavioral game theory, including level-k and cognitive hierarchy models, quantal response equilibrium, and psychological gametheory.This updated extract from Dhami's leading textbook allows the reader to pursue subsections of this vast and rapidly growing field and to tailor their reading to their specific interests inbehavioural economics.