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Selling 'Money' on EBay: a Field Study of Surplus Division

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Abstract

We study the division of trade surplus in a natural field experiment on German eBay. Acting as a seller, we offer Amazon gift cards with face values of up to 500 Euro. A random selection of buyers, the subjects of our experiment, make price offers according to the rules of eBay. Using a novel decomposition method, we infer the offered shares of trade surplus from the data and find that the average share proposed to the seller amounts to about $30 \%$. Additionally, we document: (i) insignificant effects of stake size; (ii) poor use of strategically relevant public information; and (iii) differences between East and West German subjects.

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  • Alia Gizatulina & Olga Gorelkina, 2017. "Selling 'Money' on EBay: a Field Study of Surplus Division," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2104, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2104
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Field experiment; surplus division; bargaining; Internet trade; eBay;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • C57 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Econometrics of Games and Auctions

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