Signaling in auctions: experimental evidence

Olivier Bos, Francisco Gomez-Martinez, Sander Onderstal and Tom Truyts

No 585499, Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven

Abstract: We study the relative performance of the first-price sealed-bid auction and the second-price sealed-bid auction in a laboratory experiment where bidders can signal information through their bidding behavior to an outside observer. We consider two different information settings: the auctioneer reveals either the identity of the winning bidder only, or she also reveals the winner’s payment to an outside observer. We find that the first-price sealed-bid auction in which the winner’s payment is revealed outperforms the other mechanisms in terms of revenue and efficiency. Our findings may have implications for the design of charity auctions, art auctions, and spectrum auctions.

Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des and nep-exp
Note: paper number DPS 17.08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in CES. Discussion paper series,, pages 1-31

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https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/457768 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Signalling in auctions: Experimental evidence (2021)
Working Paper: Signalling in auctions: Experimental evidence (2021)
Working Paper: Signalling in auctions: Experimental evidence (2021)
Working Paper: Signalling in Auctions: Experimental Evidence (2018)
Working Paper: Signaling in Auctions: Experimental Evidence (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ete:ceswps:585499

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