We conducted a field experiment to test the benefit from late bidding (sniping) in online auction markets. We compared sniping to early bidding (squatting) in auctions for newly-released DVDs on eBay. Sniping led to a statistically significant increase in our average surplus. However, this...

Consider two agents who learn the value of an unknown parameter by observing a sequence of private signals. The signals are independent and identically distributed across time but not necessarily across agents. We show that that when each agent's signal space is finite, the agents will commonly...

We construct a model where the reputational concern of the long-run player to look good in the current period results in the loss of all surplus. This is in contrast to the bulk of the literature on reputations where such considerations mitigate myopic incentive problems. We also show that in...