Internet auctions with many traders

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Peters, Michael; Severinov, Sergei
• 署名单位: Duke University; University of British Columbia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2005.04.005
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 220-245
• 关键词: decentralization; trading mechanisms; auctions; internet

摘要

We study a multi-unit auction environment similar to eBay. Sellers, each with a single unit of a homogeneous good, set reserve prices at their own second-price auctions. Each buyer has private value for the good and wishes to acquire a single unit. Buyers can bid as often as they like and move between auctions. We characterize a perfect Bayesian equilibrium for this decentralized dynamic mechanism in which, conditional on reserve prices, an efficient set of trades occurs at a uniform price. In a large but finite market, the sellers set reserve prices equal to their true costs under a very mild distributional assumption, so ex post efficiency is achieved. Buyers' strategies in this equilibrium are simple and do not depend on their beliefs about other buyers' valuations, or the number of buyers and sellers. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.