IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trf/wpaper/326.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Determinants and Effects of Reserve Prices in Hattrick Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Englmaier, Florian
  • Schmöller, Arno

Abstract

We use a unique hand collected data set of 6,258 auctions from the online football manager game Hattrick to study determinants and effects of reserve prices. We find that chosen reserve prices exhibit both very sophisticated and suboptimal behavior by the sellers. On the one hand, reserve prices are adjusted remarkably nuanced to the resulting sales price pattern. However, reserve prices are too clustered at zero and at multiples of e 50,000 as to be consistent with fully rational behavior. We recover the value distribution and simulate the loss in expected revenue from suboptimal reserve prices. Finally, we find evidence for the sunk cost fallacy as there is a substantial positive effect on the reserve price when the player has been acquired previously.

Suggested Citation

  • Englmaier, Florian & Schmöller, Arno, 2010. "Determinants and Effects of Reserve Prices in Hattrick Auctions," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 326, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13228/1/326.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor Niederhoffer, 1965. "A New Look at Clustering of Stock Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39, pages 309-309.
    2. Stephanie Rosenkranz & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2007. "Reserve Prices in Auctions as Reference Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 637-653, April.
    3. David H. Reiley, 2006. "Field experiments on the effects of reserve prices in auctions: more Magic on the Internet," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 195-211, March.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy & Roberts, John, 1989. "The Simple Economics of Optimal Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1060-1090, October.
    5. Andreas Nicklisch & Tobias Salz, 2008. "Reciprocity and status in a virtual field experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_37, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    6. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    7. Knetsch, Jack L, 1989. "The Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1277-1284, December.
    8. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard Thaler, 2007. "Heuristics and Biases in Retirement Savings Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 81-104, Summer.
    9. Sonnemans, Joep, 2006. "Price clustering and natural resistance points in the Dutch stock market: A natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1937-1950, November.
    10. Alvin E. Roth & Axel Ockenfels, 2002. "Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1093-1103, September.
    11. Krishna, Vijay, 2009. "Auction Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 2, number 9780123745071.
    12. Susan Athey & Philip A. Haile, 2002. "Identification of Standard Auction Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2107-2140, November.
    13. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2005. "The Willingness to Pay–Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 530-545, June.
    14. David Lucking‐Reiley & Doug Bryan & Naghi Prasad & Daniel Reeves, 2007. "Pennies From Ebay: The Determinants Of Price In Online Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 223-233, June.
    15. Riley, John G & Samuelson, William F, 1981. "Optimal Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 381-392, June.
    16. Bajari, Patrick & Hortacsu, Ali, 2003. "The Winner's Curse, Reserve Prices, and Endogenous Entry: Empirical Insights from eBay Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 329-355, Summer.
    17. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Traxler, Christian, 2010. "Reserve prices as reference points - Evidence from auctions for football players at Hattrick.org," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 230-240, April.
    18. Tim Hoppe & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2007. "An Experimental Assessment of Confederate Reserve Price Bids in Online Auction," FEMM Working Papers 07011, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    19. Simonsohn, Uri & Karlsson, Niklas & Loewenstein, George & Ariely, Dan, 2008. "The tree of experience in the forest of information: Overweighing experienced relative to observed information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 263-286, January.
    20. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. repec:bla:jindec:v:48:y:2000:i:3:p:227-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Maskin, Eric S & Riley, John G, 1984. "Optimal Auctions with Risk Averse Buyers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1473-1518, November.
    23. Carmon, Ziv & Ariely, Dan, 2000. "Focusing on the Forgone: How Value Can Appear So Different to Buyers and Sellers," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(3), pages 360-370, December.
    24. Harris, Lawrence, 1991. "Stock Price Clustering and Discreteness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(3), pages 389-415.
    25. Shogren, Jason F. & Seung Y. Shin & Dermot J. Hayes & James B. Kliebenstein, 1994. "Resolving Differences in Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 255-270, March.
    26. Kamins, Michael A & Dreze, Xavier & Folkes, Valerie S, 2004. "Effects of Seller-Supplied Prices on Buyers' Product Evaluations: Reference Prices in an Internet Auction Context," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 622-628, March.
    27. Dan Ariely & Axel Ockenfels & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "An Experimental Analysis of Ending Rules in Internet Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 890-907, Winter.
    28. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1996. "Optimal Reservation Prices in Auctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1271-1283, September.
    29. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2007. "Exchange Asymmetries Incorrectly Interpreted as Evidence of Endowment Effect Theory and Prospect Theory?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1449-1466, September.
    30. Jeff T. Casey, 1995. "Predicting Buyer-Seller Pricing Disparities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(6), pages 979-999, June.
    31. Harry J. Paarsch & Han Hong, 2006. "An Introduction to the Structural Econometrics of Auction Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262162350, April.
    32. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1994. "Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 585-599, June.
    33. Hanemann, W Michael, 1991. "Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: How Much Can They Differ?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 635-647, June.
    34. Edward Castronova, 2008. "A Test of the Law of Demand in a Virtual World: Exploring the Petri Dish Approach to Social Science," CESifo Working Paper Series 2355, CESifo.
    35. Victor Niederhoffer, 1965. "Clustering of Stock Prices," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 258-265, April.
    36. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    37. Thaler, Richard, 1980. "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 39-60, March.
    38. Arkes, Hal R. & Blumer, Catherine, 1985. "The psychology of sunk cost," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 124-140, February.
    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. Schmöller, Arno, 2010. "Bidding Behavior, Seller Strategies, and the Utilization of Information in Auctions for Complex Goods," Munich Dissertations in Economics 11175, University of Munich, Department of Economics.

    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. Stowasser, Till & Englmaier, Stowasser & Schmöller, Arno, 2016. "Determinants and Effects of Reserve Prices in Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145540, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Schmöller, Arno, 2010. "Bidding Behavior, Seller Strategies, and the Utilization of Information in Auctions for Complex Goods," Munich Dissertations in Economics 11175, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    3. Florian Englmaier & Arno Schmöller, 2008. "Reserve Price Formation in Online Auctions," CESifo Working Paper Series 2374, CESifo.
    4. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Traxler, Christian, 2010. "Reserve prices as reference points - Evidence from auctions for football players at Hattrick.org," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 230-240, April.
    5. Han, Jidong & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Zhang, Zelin, 2021. "Empirical Analyses of Nonlinear Effects of Reserve Prices on Ending Prices in Online Auctions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 86-102.
    6. Syngjoo Choi & Lars Nesheim & Imran Rasul, 2016. "Reserve Price Effects In Auctions: Estimates From Multiple Regression-Discontinuity Designs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(1), pages 294-314, January.
    7. Ricardo Gonçalves, 2013. "Empirical Evidence on the Impact of Reserve Prices in E nglish Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 202-242, March.
    8. Arbel, Yuval & Ben-Shahar, Danny & Gabriel, Stuart, 2014. "Anchoring and housing choice: Results of a natural policy experiment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 68-83.
    9. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Laurent Lamy, 2013. "“Upping the ante”: how to design efficient auctions with entry?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(2), pages 194-214, June.
    11. Ian Ayres & Mahzarin Banaji & Christine Jolls, 2015. "Race effects on eBay," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 891-917, October.
    12. Christina McGranaghan & Steven G. Otto, 2022. "Choice uncertainty and the endowment effect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 83-104, August.
    13. Kevin Hasker & Robin Sickles, 2010. "eBay in the Economic Literature: Analysis of an Auction Marketplace," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(1), pages 3-42, August.
    14. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2016. "Optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 347-371.
    15. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    16. Dominic Coey & Bradley Larsen & Kane Sweeney, 2019. "The bidder exclusion effect," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 50(1), pages 93-120, March.
    17. Stephanie Rosenkranz & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2007. "Reserve Prices in Auctions as Reference Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 637-653, April.
    18. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    19. 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.
    20. Li, Yanhai, 2020. "Optimal reserve prices in sealed-bid auctions with reference effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reserve Price; Auction Revenue; Inattention; Price Clusters; Sunk Cost Fallacy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    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:trf:wpaper:326. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.