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...

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...

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...