Shilling, Squeezing, Sniping: Explaining late bidding in online second-price auctions Export

@article{barbaro_06_ShillingSqueezingSniping, abstract = {Recent studies provide empirical evidence for sniping (i.e., waiting until the last few seconds to bid) in second-price internet auctions, particularly in auctions at eBay. This evidence is puzzling: How could sniping be consistent with rational behavior in second-price auctions, where theory predicts that the timing of bids plays no role and there is no incentive to bid less than one's own private value. Some papers attempted to provide explanation, by focussing for instance on technological problems, the role of ” experts” or on common values. Basically, all papers who explain sniping implicitly assume that eBay auctions are similar to textbook (or Vickrey-type) second-price auctions. Resulting, optimal bidding behavior outlined in auction theory could be expected in eBay auctions, too. In the present paper, we show that sniping is a rational reaction to existing eBay rules not considered hitherto. By retracting or canceling bids in online auctions the seller has a powerful hand allowing to cream off possible gains the winner might have.}, author = {Barbaro, Salvatore and Bracht, Bernd}, citeulike-article-id = {2638045}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/barbaro/BarbaroBracht.pdf}, journal = {Mimeo}, keywords = {auctions, internet\_auctions, paper\_01\_internet\_auctions, sniping}, posted-at = {2008-04-07 16:29:46}, priority = {0}, title = {Shilling, Squeezing, Sniping: Explaining late bidding in online second-price auctions}, url = {http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/barbaro/BarbaroBracht.pdf}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - barbaro_06_ShillingSqueezingSniping L3 - citeulike-article-id:2638045 N2 - Recent studies provide empirical evidence for sniping (i.e., waiting until the last few seconds to bid) in second-price internet auctions, particularly in auctions at eBay. This evidence is puzzling: How could sniping be consistent with rational behavior in second-price auctions, where theory predicts that the timing of bids plays no role and there is no incentive to bid less than one’s own private value. Some papers attempted to provide explanation, by focussing for instance on technological problems, the role of “experts” or on common values. Basically, all papers who explain sniping implicitly assume that eBay auctions are similar to textbook (or Vickrey-type) second-price auctions. Resulting, optimal bidding behavior outlined in auction theory could be expected in eBay auctions, too. In the present paper, we show that sniping is a rational reaction to existing eBay rules not considered hitherto. By retracting or canceling bids in online auctions the seller has a powerful hand allowing to cream off possible gains the winner might have. JF - Mimeo TI - Shilling, Squeezing, Sniping: Explaining late bidding in online second-price auctions KW - auctions KW - internet_auctions KW - paper_01_internet_auctions KW - sniping AU - Barbaro, Salvatore AU - Bracht, Bernd PY - 2006/// UR - http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/barbaro/BarbaroBracht.pdf ER -