Ascending Prices and Package Bidding: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis

John Kagel, Yuanchuan Lien and Paul Milgrom

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2010, vol. 2, issue 3, 160-85

Abstract: We use theory and experiment to explore the performance of multi-round, price-guided, combinatorial auctions. We define efficiency-relevant and core-relevant packages and show that if bidders bid aggressively on these and losing bidders bid to their limits, then the auction leads to efficient or core allocations. We study the theoretically relevant behaviors and hypothesize that subjects will make only a few significant bids, and that certain simulations with auto-bidders will predict variations in performance across different environments. Testing the combinatorial clock auction (CCA) design, we find experimental support for these two hypotheses. We also compare the CCA to a simultaneous ascending auction. (JEL D44)

JEL-codes: D44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.2.3.160
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.2.3.160 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/2009-0122_app.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:2:y:2010:i:3:p:160-85

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().