We present evidence from 260,000 online auctions of second-hand cars to identify the impact of public reserve prices on auction outcomes. To establish causality, we exploit multiple discontinuities in the relationship between reserve prices and vehicle characteristics to present RD estimates of...

Electronic markets have grown rapidly in recent years. One of the largest markets on the Internet is the online auction platform eBay that is active in more than 40 countries and has more than 80 million active users. In order to reduce the problems caused by information asymmetries and...