Uniform vs. Discriminatory Auctions with Variable Supply - Experimental Evidence

Damian S. Damianov (), Jörg Oechssler and Johannes Gerd Becker ()
Additional contact information
Johannes Gerd Becker: ETH Zurich, Department of Economics, Postal: Zürichbergstrasse 18, CH-8032 Zurich

No 07-68, Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications from Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim

Abstract: In the variable supply auction considered here, the seller decides how many costumers with unit demand to serve after observing their bids. Bidders are uncertain about the seller's cost. We experimentally investigate whether a uniform or a discriminatory price auction is better for the seller in this setting. Exactly as predicted by theory, it turns out that the uniform price auction produces substantially higher bids, and consequently yields higher revenues and profits for the seller. Somewhat surprisingly but again predicted by theory, it also yields a higher number of transactions, which makes it the more efficient auction format.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-mic
Date: 2007-12-05
Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged.
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/publications/dp07-68.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Uniform vs. Discriminatory Auctions with Variable Supply - Experimental Evidence (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:07-68

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications from Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Carsten Schmidt ().