Consumer bidding is common in a wide variety of markets. An important source of friction in many markets with bidding is the cost of participation. We investigate the impact of participation costs on bidder entry and bidding behavior using incentive-compatible laboratory experiments with...

The Internet has enabled consumers to make more informed decisions more conveniently with apparently more efficient price-clearing mechanisms than was available before its advent. One such mechanism is the name-your own-price auction. The authors study the extent to which decisions made in such...

Reverse pricing is a market mechanism under which a consumer's bid for a product leads to a sale if the bid exceeds a hidden acceptance threshold the seller has set in advance. The seller faces two key decisions in designing such a mechanism: First, he must decide where in the process to collect...