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Benford’s Law and Naturally Occurring Prices in Certain ebaY Auctions

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Abstract

We show that certain the winning bids for certain ebaY auctions obey Benford’s Law. One implication of this is that it is unlikely that these bids are subject to collusion among bidders, or “shilling” on the part of sellers. Parenthetically, we also show that numbers from the naturally occurring Fibonacci and Lucas sequences also obey Benford’s Law.

Suggested Citation

  • David E. Giles, 2005. "Benford’s Law and Naturally Occurring Prices in Certain ebaY Auctions," Econometrics Working Papers 0505, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    • Handle: RePEc:vic:vicewp:0505
    Note: ISSN 1485-6441
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    File URL: https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/economics/_assets/docs/econometrics/ewp0505.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pietronero, L. & Tosatti, E. & Tosatti, V. & Vespignani, A., 2001. "Explaining the uneven distribution of numbers in nature: the laws of Benford and Zipf," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 293(1), pages 297-304.
    2. De Ceuster, Marc J. K. & Dhaene, Geert & Schatteman, Tom, 1998. "On the hypothesis of psychological barriers in stock markets and Benford's Law," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 263-279, September.
    3. Giles, David E., 2005. "Testing for a Santa Claus effect in growth cycles," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 421-426, June.
    4. Canessa, Enrique, 2003. "Theory of analogous force on number sets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 328(1), pages 44-52.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Benford’s Law; auction prices; football; Kuiper test; Watson test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

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