Auctioned and Re-auctioned Children in 19th Century Sweden

Mats Bergman () and U Sofia Lundberg ()
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Mats Bergman: Department of Economics, Postal: Stockholm School of Business, Box 6501, S 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

No 468, Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics

Abstract: During the 19th century, poor and orphan Swedish children were boarded out. The foster-parents' compensation was determined in English auctions. Some children were re-auctioned. We use historical data from such auctions to study whether informational asymmetry and possibly adverse selection affected the outcome in the market for re-auctioned children. The empirical findings are consistent with adverse selection.

Keywords: Adverse selection; asymmetric information; common value; English auction; private values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
Date: 1998-05-13

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Related works:
Working Paper: Auctioned and Re-Auctioned Children in 19th Century Sweden (1998)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:umnees:0468

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