English Versus Vickrey Auctions with Loss Averse Bidders
English versus Vickrey Auctions with Loss Averse Bidders Jonas von Wangenheim School of Business & Economics Discussion Paper Economics 2019/1 English versus Vickrey Auctions with Loss Averse Bidders∗ Jonas von Wangenheimyz December 19, 2018 Abstract Evidence suggests that people evaluate outcomes relative to expecta- tions. I analyze this expectation-based loss aversion [K}oszegiand Rabin (2006, 2009)] in the context of dynamic and static auctions, where the ref- erence point is given by the (endogenous) equilibrium outcome. If agents update their reference point during the auction, the arrival of informa- tion crucially affects equilibrium behavior. Consequently, I show that| even with independent private values|the Vickrey auction yields strictly higher revenue than the English auction, violating the well known revenue equivalence. Thus, dynamic loss aversion offers a novel explanation for empirically observed differences between these auction formats. Keywords: Vickrey auction, English auction, expectation-based loss aver- sion, revenue equivalence, dynamic loss aversion, personal equilibrium JEL classification: D03, D44 ∗I thank Yves Breitmoser, Fran¸coiseForges, Matthias Hammer, Paul Heidhues, Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel, Johannes Johnen, Thomas Mariotti, Antonio Rosato, Thomas Schacherer, Ran Spiegler, Roland Strausz, and Georg Weizs¨acker for helpful comments, as well as participants at the 11th World Congress of the Econometric Society (Montreal), the 2015 EEA conference (Mannheim), the Applied Theory Workshop at Toulouse School of Economics, the 2016 EARIE conference (Lisbon), the CRC conference in Berlin, the ZEW Research Seminar, and the 2017 Annual Conference of the Verein f¨urSocialpolitik (Vienna). I gratefully acknowledge financial support of the German Research Foundation through CRC TRR 190 and RTG 1659.
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