The design of markets has become a major issue due to the capability of online operators to implement almost any set of market rules overnight. With this study we contribute to the literature of market design by presenting a theoretical and experimental analysis of sudden termination auctions....

The Hard Close auction has become a familiar auction format in online markets and in a private value framework this dynamic second-price auction format has experimentally been tested in recent studies. Considering a common value framework, Bajari and Hortaçsu (2003) demonstrate that in the Hard...

We report on a series of experiments that examine bidding behavior in first-price sealed bid auctions with symmetric and asymmetric bidders.To study the extent of strategic behavior, we use an experimental design that elicits bidders complete bid functions in each round (auction) of the...

This chapter explores how economists use experimental methods to understand better the behavioral underpinnings of environmental valuation. Economic experiments, in the lab or field, are an attractive tool to address intricate incentive and contextual questions that arise in assessing values...

This study examines bidder preferences between alternative auction institutions. We seek to experimentally characterize the degree to which bidders prefer an ascending auction to a sealed bid auction. We find very strong ceteris paribus preferences for the ascending institution with bidders...

This is a commentary on Vernon Smith's contributions to experimental economics

Raising the public administration's efficiency is, without any doubt, one of the greatest challenges nowadays in Brazil. The State's technical and allocative efficiency dimensions necessarily require efficiency of public agencies in the acquisition of inputs for their production and supply...

Auctions are the allocation-mechanisms of choice whenever goods and information in markets are scarce. Therefore, understanding how information affects welfare and revenues in these markets is of fundamental interest. We introduce new statistical concepts, k- and k-m-dispersion, for...

In mechanism design, Myerson regularity is often too weak for a quantitative analysis of performance. For instance, ratios between revenue and welfare, or sales probabilities may vanish at the boundary of Myerson regularity. This paper therefore explores the quantitative version of Myerson...

Public agencies mainly rely on two modes to procure goods and services: auctions and direct negotiations. We study a 1994 policy change in Germany that introduced the possibility to procure rail services in auctions as well as in direct negotiations with the incumbent. We analyze the effect of...