In this paper we use an experiment to compare a theory of risk aversion and a theory of spite as an explanation for … overbidding in auctions. As a workhorse we use the second-price all-pay and the first-price winner-pay auction. Both risk and … spite can be used to rationalize deviations from risk neutral equilibrium bids in auctions. We exploit that equilibrium …

prediction. This implies that risk affects bidding behavior as generally expected in auction theory. While resolving a long …We introduce a new method of varying the risk that bidders face in first-price private value auctions. We find that … decreasing bidders' risk significantly reduces the degree of overbidding relative to the risk-neutral Bayesian-Nash equilibrium …

In this paper we use an experiment to compare a theory of risk aversion and a theory of spite as an explanation for … overbidding in auctions. As a workhorse we use the second-price all-pay and the first-price winner-pay auction. Both risk and … spite can be used to rationalize deviations from risk neutral equilibrium bids in auctions. We exploit that equilibrium …