Effect of Auction Design on Bidder Entry: Evidence from An Online Labor Market

We propose that auction duration and auction description are two important auction design parameters that could serve as screening mechanisms for quality in online auctions. Using data from an online labor matching platform that connects buyers with IT service vendors, we examine the effects of auction duration and auction descriptions on auction outcomes (i.e., number of bids, bidder quality, bidding price) and project outcomes (i.e., project being contracted and being completed). Our empirical analyses show that, in buyer-determined reverse auctions of online labor matching, auctions with a longer duration and a longer description attract more bids, but they also attract more low quality bidders with less experience and lower completion rate, and hence result in a lower probability of successful contracting and completion of software service projects. Our research provides empirical evidence highlighting the strategic roles of auction design parameters like auction duration and descriptions as a potential screening mechanism for online labor matching platforms

Learning from Seller Experiements in Online Markets

The internet has dramatically reduced the cost of varying prices, dis- plays and information provided to consumers, facilitating both active and passive experimentation. We document the prevalence of targeted pricing and auction design variation on eBay, and identify hundreds of thousands of experiments con- ducted by sellers across a wide array of retail products. We show how this type of data can be used to address questions about consumer behavior and market outcomes, and provide illustrative results on price dispersion, the frequency of over-bidding, the choice of reserve prices, ?buy now?options and other auction design parameters, and on consumer sensitivity to shipping fees. We argue that leveraging the experiments of market participants takes advantage of the scale and heterogeneity of online markets and can be a powerful approach for testing and measurement.

DETERMINANTS OF REVERSE AUCTION RESULTS: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF FREELANCER.COM

In recent years, auction mechanisms have been widely implemented in online platforms, leading to the advent of reverse auctions sites on which people can offer small- and medium-sized projects such as craft or information technology (IT) projects. These sites are especially interesting for freelancers who can bid for a particular project. The principal offering the project can make a decision based on the bid amount as well as on other information available about the freelancers. In this paper, we derive factors from transaction cost theory that explain the decision of a principal besides the bid amount. Based on an empirical analysis of bidding information extracted from Freelancer.com, we found that the bid amount has the highest effect on the decision of the principal followed by the number of reviews the freelancer has already received and the number of already conducted transactions between a freelancer and a principal. We also found that principals prefer freelancers who live in the same cultural area. Furthermore our results indicate that a gold membership has no effect on the decision of the principal which is of interest especially for those freelancers who believe they are considered to be more reliable as a gold member

Understanding Crowdsourcing Contest Fitness Strategic Decision Factors and Performance: An Expectation-Confirmation Theory Perspective

Contest-based intermediary crowdsourcing represents a powerful new business model for generating ideas or solutions by engaging the crowd through an online competition. Prior research has examined motivating factors such as increased monetary reward or demotivating factors such as project requirement ambiguity. However, problematic issues related to crowd contest fitness have received little attention, particularly with regard to crowd strategic decision-making and contest outcomes that are critical for success of crowdsourcing platforms as well as implementation of crowdsourcing models in organizations. Using Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT), we take a different approach that focuses on contest level outcomes by developing a model to explain contest duration and performance. We postulate these contest outcomes are a function of managing crowdsourcing participant contest-fitness expectations and disconfirmation, particularly during the bidding process. Our empirical results show that contest fitness expectations and disconfirmation have an overall positive effect on contest performance. This study contributes to theory by demonstrating the adaptability of ECT literature to the online crowdsourcing domain at the level of the project contest. For practice, important insights regarding strategic decision making and understanding how crowd contest-fitness are observed for enhancing outcomes related to platform viability and successful organizational implementation

How the auction design influences procurement prices: an experiment

The targeted design of auctions has to take behavioral regularities into account. This paper explores whether procurement auction formats can take advantage of bidders' willingness-to-pay-willingness-to-accept disparity. In a laboratory experiment, we compare four different second-price auction formats for procuring a good. The four formats are a sealed-bid auction and three different descending-clock auctions. We assume that a bidder's willingness-to-accept exceeds his willingness-to-pay and that, depending on the auction format, a bidder's reference-state shifts such that the bidder's perspective moves from a willingness-to-accept perspective towards a willingness-to-pay perspective, thus inducing aggressive bids. In line with the prediction, auction prices decline across the four formats. In particular, we observe the lowest prices in those two clock auction formats that, at every auction stage, select a bidder as the current leading bidder. We conclude that mechanisms influence the reference state and that auctions that foster reference-state shifts lead to lower payments for the buyer. These results support and generalize findings on sales auctions. However, not all of our findings on procurement auctions mirror findings on sales auctions. Bidders overbid in sealed-bid procurement auctions, which does not mirror the commonly observed overbidding in sealed-bid sales auctions

High or low initial setting price?: Initial setting price as prediction of intention to bid in on line auctions

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economic

Learning from Seller Experiments in Online Markets

The internet has dramatically reduced the cost of varying prices, displays and information provided to consumers, facilitating both active and passive experimentation. We document the prevalence of targeted pricing and auction design variation on eBay, and identify hundreds of thousands of experiments conducted by sellers across a wide array of retail products. We show how this type of data can be used to address questions about consumer behavior and market outcomes, and provide illustrative results on price dispersion, the frequency of over-bidding, the choice of reserve prices, "buy now" options and other auction design parameters, and on consumer sensitivity to shipping fees. We argue that leveraging the experiments of market participants takes advantage of the scale and heterogeneity of online markets and can be a powerful approach for testing and measurement.

PENERIMAAN BEA LELANG: EMPIRICAL FACTOR ANALYSIS PADA PROSES LELANG ASET NEGARA DI INDONESIA

Penerimaan negara bukan pajak menjadi salah satu penerimaan negara yang penting, salah satunya berasal dari penerimaan bea lelang. Bea Lelang dihitung dari harga laku lelang atas pelelangan atas aset-aset negara atau berhubungan dengan negara atas pelepasan aset tersebut. Penerimaan bea lelang menjadi objek penelitian. Penelitian ini membuktikan bahwa penerimaan bea lelang dipengaruhi oleh faktor-faktor dari jumlah peserta, aspek demografis pemenang lelang, masa tayang, dan nilai limit terhadap harga laku. Harga limit ini menjadi dasar pengenaan bea lelang sebagai penerimaan negara bukan pajak. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode korelasi. Data dikumpulkan dari data pelelangan Kementerian Keuangan dan BPS. Teknik analisis yang digunakan ialah analisis regresi dengan data cross section. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa jumlah peserta lelang berpengaruh signifikan terhadap harga laku lelang yang terbentuk. Aspek demografis berupa umur pemenang lelang berpengaruh signifikan terhadap peningkatan harga laku lelang. Masa tayang lelang tidak berpengaruh signifikan dalam peningkatan harga laku lelang. Nilai limit berpengaruh signifikan terhadap besarnya harga laku lelang yang terbentuk. Penelitian ini merekomendasikan penambahan publikasi lelang internet yang bersifat komersial yang utamanya ditargetkan pada pria

Jump bidding does not reduce prices: Field-experimental evidence from online auctions

One feature of online auctions that has attracted much interest is jump bidding, whereby a bidder raises the price by more than what is needed to become the highest bidder. The effects of jump bidding on the final selling price are unknown because past observational studies could not separate bidder interest from bidder behavior. Our study involves an in vivo experiment during live auctions on a large online auction platform. We intervened early in auctions at low, non-competitive price levels, either through jump bidding or through incremental bidding, and randomly varied the magnitude of our intervention. In contrast to leading theories in the auction literature, which predict a negative effect of jump bidding on the final selling price, we find that our jump bidding intervention has no effect on the final selling price

Beyond posted prices: the past, present and future of participative pricing mechanisms

Driven by the low transaction costs and interactive nature of the internet, customer participation in the price-setting process has increased. These changes were first brought about by the rise of online auctions in the early 2000s, followed by the emergence of newer participative mechanisms. Today, platforms such as eBay have popularized online auctions on a global scale, Priceline has made headlines with its name-your-own-price (NYOP) business model, and Humble Bundle has enabled independent musicians and game developers to market their works through pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing. Advertising exchanges conduct several hundred million individual auctions per day to sell online advertising slots. These are just a few examples of participative pricing in transactions among consumers or businesses. In parallel, academic research on participative pricing has blossomed in recent years, with an overarching concern over the profitability and other marketing implications these mechanisms have on sellers and buyers. The present paper contributes to this literature in three ways. First, we propose a definition of participative pricing mechanisms, as well as a useful taxonomy. Second, we discuss the current understanding by synthesizing conceptual and empirical academic literature. Third, we outline promising research questions with a key focus on the related behavioral aspects of buyers and sellers