The Role of Reference-Dependent Preferences in Auctions and Negotiations

The Role of Reference-Dependent Preferences in Auctions and Negotiations PDF Author: Antonio Rosato
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Languages : en
Pages : 250

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This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring the role that reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion play in auctions and negotiations. The first chapter characterizes the profit-maximizing pricing and product-availability strategies for a retailer selling two substitute goods to loss-averse consumers, showing that limited-availability sales can manipulate consumers into an ex-ante unfavorable purchase. When the products have similar social value, the seller maximizes profits by raising the consumers' reference point through a tempting discount on a good available only in limited supply (the bargain) and cashing in with a high price on the other good (the rip-off), which the consumers buy if the bargain is not available to minimize their disappointment. The price difference between the bargain and the rip-off is larger when the products are close substitutes than when they are distant substitutes; hence dispersion in prices and dispersion in consumers' valuations are inversely related. The seller might prefer to offer a deal on the more valuable product, using it as a bait, because consumers feel a larger loss, in terms of forgone consumption, if this item is not available and are hence willing to pay a larger premium to reduce the uncertainty in their consumption outcomes. I also show that the bargain item can be a loss leader, that the seller's product line is not welfare-maximizing and that she might supply a socially wasteful product. The second chapter studies sequential first-price and second-price auctions when bidders are expectations-based loss-averse. A large body of empirical research in auctions documents that prices of identical products sold sequentially tend to decline across auctions (a phenomenon which has been dubbed "declining price anomaly" or "afternoon effect", as often later auctions take place in the afternoon whereas the first ones usually take place in the morning) . In this chapter I argue that expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion provide an alternative, preference-based, explanation for the afternoon effect observed in sequential auctions. First, I show that when bidders have reference-dependent preferences, the equilibrium bidding functions are history-dependent, even if bidders have independent private values. The reason is that learning the type of the winner in the previous auction modifies a bidder's expectations about how likely he is to win in the current auction; and since expectations are the reference point, the optimal bid in each round is affected by this learning effect. More precisely, I identify what I call a "discouragement effect": the higher the type of the winner in the first auction is, the less aggressively the bidding behavior of the remaining bidders in the second auction. This discouragement effect in turn pushes bidders to bid more aggressively in the earlier auction. Moreover, the uncertainty about future own bids, due to the history-dependence of the equilibrium strategies, generates a precautionary bidding effect that pushes bidders to bid less aggressively in the first auction. The precautionary bidding effect and the anticipation of the discouragement effect go in opposite directions; when the latter effect is stronger, a declining price path arises in equilibrium. The third chapter studies the role of expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion in a sequential bargaining game with one-sided incomplete information between a seller who makes all the offers and a buyer. I show that loss aversion eases the rent-efficiency trade-off for the seller who can now serve a larger measuer of consumers at an earlier stage. Thus, in equilibrium the seller achieves higher profits and we have less delay with loss aversion than without it. Furthermore, I also show that, besides increasing the seller's profit and overall trade efficiency, loss aversion also reallocates surplus among consumers by increasing the equilibrium payoff of some low-valuation buyers and decreasing that of high-valuation ones.

Do Auction Bids Betray Expectations-based Reference Dependent Preferences?

Do Auction Bids Betray Expectations-based Reference Dependent Preferences? PDF Author: A. Banerji
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Auctions with a Buy Price

Auctions with a Buy Price PDF Author: Nicholas Shunda
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ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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In an auction with a buy price, the seller provides bidders with an option to end the auction early by accepting a transaction at a posted price. The Buy-It-Now option on eBay is a leading example of an auction with a buy price. This paper develops a model of an auction with a buy price in which bidders use the auction's reserve price and buy price to formulate a reference price. The model both explains why a revenue-maximizing seller would want to augment her auction with a buy price and demonstrates that the seller sets a higher reserve price when she can affect the bidders' reference price through the auction's reserve price and buy price than when she can affect the bidders' reference price through the auction's reserve price only. Introducing a small reference-price effect can shrink the range of buy prices bidders are willing to exercise. The comparative statics properties of bidding behavior are in sharp contrast to equilibrium behavior in other models where the existence and size of the auction's buy price have no effect on bidding behavior.

Reference Dependent Preferences and Overbidding in Private and Common Value Auctions

Reference Dependent Preferences and Overbidding in Private and Common Value Auctions PDF Author: Mariano Runco
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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This paper proposes a tractable model of reference dependent preferences to explain overbidding in private and common value auctions. It is assumed that the reference point is proportional to the value of the object and that losses are weighed more heavily than gains in the utility function. Equilibrium bidding strategies are derived for first- and second-price private and common value auctions. It is found that this model fits the data of all experiments analyzed better than a standard risk neutral model; moreover, it explains overbidding in private value auctions better than other alternatives. These results suggest that reference dependence, among other factors, might play a role in the widespread tendency of subjects to overbid in most experimental auctions.

Comment On: "Auctions with a Buy Price: the Case of Reference-dependent Preferences"

Comment On: Author: Ángel Hernando-Veciana
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Category :
Languages : en
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Reference-Dependent Preferences

Reference-Dependent Preferences PDF Author: Evelyn Stommel
Publisher: Springer Gabler
ISBN: 9783658006341
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Most of our daily decisions are made under uncertainty and risk, without complete information about all relevant aspects. We all constantly make such decisions, from the simplest “should I take my raincoat today?” to more serious examples, such as those on investment and portfolio decisions, holding of shares, insurance patterns, or negotiation processes. Within these situations, the bounded rationality of individuals and institutions towards risk and uncertainty is embedded. The central theory underlying this study is prospect theory, an adequate model to predict the real and most often bounded rationality of human behavior given certain incentives, preferences, and constraints. Evelyn Stommel investigates a crucial question within behavioral economics, namely the research on reference points within human decision making processes. Based on experimental investigations, she focuses three key challenges: what constitutes a reference point, the process of the formation of a reference point, and factors influencing the formation of reference points.

Negotiation, Auctions, and Market Engineering

Negotiation, Auctions, and Market Engineering PDF Author: Henner Gimpel
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540775544
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This book contains a selection of papers presented at the International Seminar "Negotiation and Market Engineering", held at Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, in November 2006. The 17 revised full papers presented were carefully selected and reviewed. The papers deal with the complexity of negotiations, auctions, and markets as economic, social, and IT systems. The authors give a broad overview on the major issues to be addressed and the methodologies used to approach them.

Preferences in Negotiations

Preferences in Negotiations PDF Author: Henner Gimpel
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540722254
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The attachment effect can hinder effective negotiation. Parties are influenced by their subjective expectations formed on account of the exchange of offers, they form reference points, and loss aversion potentially leads to a change of preferences when expectations change. This book presents a motivation, formalization, and substantiation of the attachment effect. The results can be used for prescriptive advice to negotiators.

Reference Dependent Preferences in Multi-issue Bargaining

Reference Dependent Preferences in Multi-issue Bargaining PDF Author:
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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A Model of Reference-dependent Preferences

A Model of Reference-dependent Preferences PDF Author: Botond Kőszegi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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