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Frontiers of Economics in China

ISSN 1673-3444

ISSN 1673-3568(Online)

CN 11-5744/F

邮发代号 80-978

Frontiers of Economics in China  2017, Vol. 12 Issue (3): 341-370   https://doi.org/10.3868/s060-006-017-0015-4
  本期目录
Hidden Reserve Prices with Risk-Averse Bidders
Huagang Li1(), Guofu Tan2()
1. GE Capital, 201 High Ridge Rd., Stamford, CT 06905, USA; Sycamore Investment Services (Shanghai) Limited, Shanghai, China
2. Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0253, USA
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Abstract

In this paper, we provide an alternative explanation for why auctioneers often keep the reserve price hidden or secret. We consider a standard independent private values environment in which the buyers are risk-averse and the seller has private information about her valuation of the object to be auctioned. The seller uses a first-price sealed-bid auction mechanism combined with either an announced reserve price or a hidden reserve price. We compare the seller’s ex ante expected profits under these two policies and find that the optimal hidden reserve price policy generates higher expected profits for the seller when the buyers are fairly risk-averse under particular restrictions on buyers’ preferences and the distributions of private values. As the number of the buyers increases, the hidden reserve price is more likely to dominate. Numerical methods are used to demonstrate the generality of our main results.

Key wordsfirst-price auctions    hidden reserve price    risk aversion
出版日期: 2017-09-19
 引用本文:   
. [J]. Frontiers of Economics in China, 2017, 12(3): 341-370.
Huagang Li, Guofu Tan. Hidden Reserve Prices with Risk-Averse Bidders. Front. Econ. China, 2017, 12(3): 341-370.
 链接本文:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fec/CN/10.3868/s060-006-017-0015-4
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fec/CN/Y2017/V12/I3/341
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