Despite its popularity as a fundraiser for charities, very little research has been done on the bidding and revenue properties of the silent auction. This paper examines the consequences of two behaviors common in silent auctions, jump-bidding and sniping, in laboratory experiments with...

Tournaments can elicit more effort but sabotage may attenuate the effect of competition. Because it is hard to separate effort and ability, the evidence on tournaments is thin. There is even less evidence on sabotage because these acts often consist of subjective peer evaluation or "office...

Data from a recent field experiment suggests that differences in participation rates are responsible for much of the variations in charity auction revenues across formats. We provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of this and other related results. The model illustrates the limits of...