Field Experiments on the Effects of Reserve Prices in Auctions: More Magic on the Internet

This paper presents experimental evidence on the effects of minimum bids in first-price, sealed-bid auctions. The auction experiments manipulated the minimum bids in a preexisting market on the Internet for collectible trading cards from the game Magic: the Gathering. They yielded data on a number of economic outcomes, including the number of participating bidders, the probability of sale, the levels of individual bids, and the auctioneerç—´ revenues. The benchmark theoretical model tested here is the classic auction model described by Riley and Samuelson (1981), with symmetric, risk-neutral bidders with independent private values. The data verify a number of the predictions of the theory. A particularly interesting result shows that many bidders behave strategically, anticipating the effects of the reserve price on others?bids.

Experimental Evidence on the Endogenous Entry of Bidders in Internet Auctions

This paper tests the empirical predictions of recent theories of the endogenous entry of bidders in auctions. Data come from a field experiment, involving sealed-bid auctions for collectible trading cards over the Internet. Manipulating the reserve prices in the auctions as an experimental treatment variable generates several results. First, observed participation behavior indicates that bidders consider their bid submission to be costly, and that bidder participation is indeed an endogenous decision. Second, the participation is more consistent with a mixed-strategy entry equilibrium than with a deterministic equilibrium. Third, the data reject the prediction that the profit- maximizing reserve price is greater than or equal to the auctioneerç—´ salvage value for the good, showing instead that a zero reserve price provides higher expected profits in this case.

Spartan Daily, March 16, 1995

Volume 104, Issue 35https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8680/thumbnail.jp

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

Editorial / Whalesong Staff -- Letters to the Editor -- Holiday Expectations -- Perseverance Theatre's Hold These Truths -- Legislators Look at Finance / The Symposium Continued -- UAS In Brief -- UAS Community Thanksgiving --A Time to Remember: The Christmas Truces -- School of Ed. Future Uncertain -- Fantastic Beasts, Unimaginative Writing -- Calendar and Comics

Spartan Daily, October 4, 2017

Volume 149, Issue 18https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2017/1059/thumbnail.jp

Magic: The Gathering Is Turing Complete

Magic: The Gathering is a popular and famously complicated trading card game about magical combat. In this paper we show that optimal play in real-world Magic is at least as hard as the Halting Problem. This provides a positive answer to the question "is there a real-world game where perfect play is undecidable under the rules in which it is typically played?", a question that has been open for a decade [David Auger and Oliver Teytaud, 2012; Erik D. Demaine and Robert A. Hearn, 2009]. To do this, we present a methodology for embedding an arbitrary Turing machine into a game of Magic such that the first player is guaranteed to win the game if and only if the Turing machine halts. Our result applies to how real Magic is played, can be achieved using standard-size tournament-legal decks, and does not rely on stochasticity or hidden information. Our result is also highly unusual in that all moves of both players are forced in the construction. This shows that even recognising who will win a game in which neither player has a non-trivial decision to make for the rest of the game is undecidable. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for a unified computational theory of games and remarks about the playability of such a board in a tournament setting

Small-Scale Irrigation Mapping (SSIM) as a tool for improving and validating irrigated area maps: contextual approach and lessons learnt in Burkina Faso

Recent rapid expansion of private small-scale irrigation provides an opportunity to improve livelihoods and food security, but requires knowledge of where it is happening, in order to sustainably manage water use. Concerns are rising regarding the negative impacts of unchecked expansion of irrigation on downstream water quality and availability, particularly when using sub-optimal practices (de Fraiture et al. 2014; Domenech and Ringler 2013; Shah 2007). Therefore, for informed planning of potential sustainable irrigation expansion, policy makers and resource managers at the national level are interested in maps of the current extent of small-scale irrigation. Although several maps of irrigated areas have been produced for Burkina Faso, these maps, often of 250 meter (m), 300 m or 1 kilometer (km) resolution, are of too low resolution to account for scattered irrigation on areas smaller than 1 hae. Small-scale irrigation in Burkina Faso is typically carried out on individual plots of less than a quarter of hectare, with a small proportion on groups of fields no larger than one hectare, implying that existing maps are not reliably capturing the true extent and distribution of small-scale irrigation in the country

Almost a proper Buddhist : the post-secular complexity of heritage Buddhist teen identity in Britain

This qualitative study explores how Buddhist affiliation relates to practice, how Buddhist teens define and experience their religious identity and which sociological paradigms are helpful in understanding the dynamics of Buddhist teen identity. Focus group methodology was used to examine attitudes to superstition, stereotypes, prejudice, religion and society, convictions, and friends for 65 heritage Buddhist teenagers from Britain. Shared identity was expressed in terms of spiritual teachers, eclecticism within the Buddhist tradition, Asian heritage, openness to the supernatural, relevance of Buddhism in the present day and temple-going. Practice rather than belief seemed to represent the operational difference between how Buddhist teens defined 'Buddhist' and 'proper Buddhist'. Buddhist teens experienced little negative prejudice on account of their religion but experienced being grouped with Buddhists of other ethnicities in others' eyes. Secularization, modernity, projection and especially post-secularism were found helpful as sociological paradigms for explaining various aspects of Buddhist teen identity