Reserve Price Signaling With Public Information: Evidence From Online Auto Auctions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Guan, Junyan; Xu, Boli
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; University of Iowa
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.70047
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: UNOBSERVED HETEROGENEITY; identification; bidder; games; MODEL; OIL

摘要

This article considers an auction model in which a seller's choice of reserve price signals her private information about the object's quality. We show that the signaling incentive would lower the seller's payoff and the probability of sale. We estimate the model using a novel dataset from a large online auto auction platform. Counterfactual simulations suggest that a secret reserve price could shut down the signaling incentive and improve both the seller's payoff and the probability of sale, which supports the prevalent use of secret reserve prices in practice.