IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/0006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bidding Behavior and Decision Costs in Field Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • John A. List

    (Department of Economics, University of Central Florida)

  • David Lucking-Reiley

    (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

Whether rationality of economic behavior increases with expected payoffs and decreases with the cognitive cost it takes to formulate an optimal strategy remains an open question. We explore these issues with field data, using individual bids from sealed-bid auctions in which we sold nearly $10,000 worth of sportscards. Our results indicate that stakes do indeed matter, as high-priced ($70) cards produced more of the theoretically predicted strategic behavior than did lower-priced ($3) cards. We find additional evidence consistent with the importance of cognitive costs, as subjects more experienced with sportscard auctions exhibited a greater tendency to behave strategically than did less experienced bidders.

Suggested Citation

  • John A. List & David Lucking-Reiley, 2000. "Bidding Behavior and Decision Costs in Field Experiments," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0006, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:0006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu00-w06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2000
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Edward Clarke, 1971. "Multipart pricing of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 17-33, September.
    3. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:2:p:207-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. John Conlisk, 1996. "Why Bounded Rationality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 669-700, June.
    5. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    6. repec:feb:framed:0052 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Noussair, Charles, 1995. "Equilibria in a Multi-object Uniform Price Sealed Bid Auction with Multi-unit Demands," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 337-351, March.
    8. John A. List, 2001. "Do Explicit Warnings Eliminate the Hypothetical Bias in Elicitation Procedures? Evidence from Field Auctions for Sportscards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1498-1507, December.
    9. Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1993. "Monetary Rewards and Decision Cost in Experimental Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(2), pages 245-261, April.
    10. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 1998. "Multi-unit auctions with uniform prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(2), pages 227-258.
    11. Rafael Tenorio, 1997. "On Strategic Quantity Bidding in Multiple Unit Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 207-217, June.
    12. Robert Slonim & Alvin E. Roth, 1998. "Learning in High Stakes Ultimatum Games: An Experiment in the Slovak Republic," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 569-596, May.
    13. List, John A & Shogren, Jason F, 1998. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1350-1355, December.
    14. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-631, July.
    15. repec:feb:framed:0043 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2009. "Bidding Behaviour in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 855-882, April.
    3. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2003. "Bidding Behavior in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation and some Theoretical Insights," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp210, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    4. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    5. Yuanguang Yu, 2012. "An Optimal Ad Valorem Tax/Subsidy with an Output-Based Refunded Emission Payment for Permits Auction in an Oligopoly Market," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(2), pages 235-248, June.
    6. Moldovanu, Benny & Ewerhart II, Christian, 2001. "The German UMTS Design: Insights From Multi-Object Auction Theory," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 02-05, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    7. Ravi Bapna & Paulo Goes & Alok Gupta, 2005. "Pricing and Allocation for Quality-Differentiated Online Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1141-1150, July.
    8. Park, Sunju & Rothkopf, Michael H., 2005. "Auctions with bidder-determined allowable combinations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(2), pages 399-415, March.
    9. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & John A. List & David H. Reiley, 2006. "Demand Reduction In Multi-Unit Auctions With Varying Numbers Of Bidders: Theory And Evidence From A Field Experiment ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 203-231, February.
    10. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2004:i:8:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:feb:artefa:0085 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Manelli, Alejandro M. & Sefton, Martin & Wilner, Benjamin S., 2006. "Multi-unit auctions: A comparison of static and dynamic mechanisms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 304-323, October.
    13. Bichler, Martin & Paulsen, Per, 2018. "A principal-agent model of bidding firms in multi-unit auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 20-40.
    14. Heinrich, Carsten & Ziras, Charalampos & Jensen, Tue V. & Bindner, Henrik W. & Kazempour, Jalal, 2021. "A local flexibility market mechanism with capacity limitation services," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    15. Lau, Stephanie, 2011. "Investment incentives in bilateral trading," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 538-552.
    16. Tafreshian, Amirmahdi & Masoud, Neda, 2022. "A truthful subsidy scheme for a peer-to-peer ridesharing market with incomplete information," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 130-161.
    17. Shrestha, Ratna K., 2017. "Menus of price-quantity contracts for inducing the truth in environmental regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-7.
    18. Tommy Andersson & Lars Ehlers & Lars-Gunnar Svensson & Ryan Tierney, 2022. "Gale’s Fixed Tax for Exchanging Houses," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 3110-3128, November.
    19. Mishra, Debasis & Parkes, David C., 2007. "Ascending price Vickrey auctions for general valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 335-366, January.
    20. Loertscher, Simon & Mezzetti, Claudio, 2021. "A dominant strategy, double clock auction with estimation-based tatonnement," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(3), July.
    21. Mizukami, Hideki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Wakayama, Takuma, 2003. "Strategy-Proof Sharing," Working Papers 1170, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    22. William H. Sandholm, 2005. "Negative Externalities and Evolutionary Implementation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 885-915.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cognitive cost; field experiments; multi-unit auctions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

    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:van:wpaper:0006. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.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.