Selling Money on Ebay: A Field Study of Surplus Division

Alia Gizatulina () and Olga Gorelkina
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Alia Gizatulina: University of St. Gallen and Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

No 2016_20, Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods from Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Abstract: We study the division of trade surplus in a competitive market environment by conducting a natural field experiment on German eBay. Acting as a seller, we offer Amazon gift cards with face values of up to 500 Euro. Randomly arriving buyers, the subjects of our experiment, make price offers according to eBay rules. Using a novel decomposition method, we infer offered shares of trade surplus and find that the average share proposed to the seller amounts to 29%. Additionally, we document: (i) insignificant effects of stake size; (ii) poor use of strategically relevant public information; and (iii) behavioural differences between East and West German subjects.

Keywords: Field experiment; ultimatum game; surplus division; bargaining; Internet trade; eBay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C57 C72 C93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-pay
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http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2016_20online.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Selling “Money” on eBay: A field study of surplus division (2021)
Working Paper: Selling 'Money' on EBay: a Field Study of Surplus Division (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2016_20

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