The number of active bidders in internet auctions

Laurens de Haan, Casper de Vries and Chen Zhou ()

Journal of Economic Theory, 2013, vol. 148, issue 4, 1726-1736

Abstract: Internet auctions attract numerous agents, but only a few become active bidders. Under the Independent Private Values Paradigm the valuations of the active bidders form a specific record sequence. This record sequence implies that if the number n of potential bidders is large, the number of active bidders is approximately 2logn, potentially explaining the relative inactivity. Moreover, if the arrival of potential bidders forms a non-homogeneous Poisson process due to a time preference for auctions that are soon to close, then the arrival process of the active bidders is approximately a Poisson arrival process.

Keywords: Internet auctions; Number of active bidders; Record series (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053113000835
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jetheo:v:148:y:2013:i:4:p:1726-1736

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.04.017

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Theory is currently edited by A. Lizzeri and K. Shell

More articles in Journal of Economic Theory from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().