Reserve Price Effects in Auctions: Estimates from Multiple RD Designs
Lars Nesheim and
Imran Rasul
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Syngjoo Choi
No 10486, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
We present evidence from 260,000 online auctions of second-hand cars to identify the impact of public reserve prices on auction outcomes. We exploit multiple discontinuities in the relationship between reserve prices and vehicle characteristics to present causal RD estimates of reserve price impacts. We find an increase in reserve price decreases the number of bidders, increases the likelihood the object remains unsold, and increases expected revenue conditional on sale. We then combine these estimates to calibrate the reserve price effect on the auctioneer's ex ante expected revenue. This reveals the auctioneer's reserve price policy to be locally optimal.
Keywords: Auctions; Regression discontinuity; Reserve price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 L11 L62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP10486 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Working Paper: Reserve price effects in auctions: estimates from multiple RD designs (2010) 
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:cpr:ceprdp:10486
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP10486
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().