 An experimental study of auctioneers’ and bidders’ preferences over corruption in auctionsAbraham Saucedo Cepeda Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2024, vol. 108, issue C Abstract: This paper examines the role of auctioneers’ payoff structure in determining (a) their willingness to solicit bribes in exchange for an auctioned item, (b) their preference over soliciting a bribe from an auction’s highest- or lowest-bidder, and (c) the likelihood an auction is won by its highest-bidder. I conduct an auction experiment with bribery in which auctioneers’ net-of-bribes payoffs are not fixed, but depend on the size of the winning bid. Bribery reduces the probability of victory of highest-bidders and average winning bids. When auctioneers’ payoffs are highly dependent on winning bids they are less likely to solicit a bribe and more likely to choose the highest-bidder when soliciting one. These results indicate that aligning auctioneers’ personal profit-maximization objectives with the desired outcome of the auction mechanism reduces the likelihood and negative effects of bribery in auctions. Keywords: Procurement; Auction; Experiment; Corruption; Bribe (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:108:y:2024:i:c:s2214804323001672 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2023.102141 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier |
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