A comparison of different trading protocols in an agent-based market

We compare price dynamics of different market protocols (batch auction, continuous double auction and dealership) in an agent-based artificial exchange. In order to distinguish the effects of market architectures alone, we use a controlled environment where allocative and informational issues are neglected and agents do not optimize or learn. Hence, we rule out the possibility that the behavior of traders drives the price dynamics. Aiming to compare price stability and execution quality in broad sense, we analyze standard deviation, excess kurtosis, tail exponent of returns, volume, perceived gain by traders and bid-ask spread. Overall, a dealership market appears to be the best candidate, generating low volume and volatility, virtually no excess kurtosis and high perceived gain.     

基于边际成本递增的多属性反向拍卖最优策略

针对当前传统的基于单一价格属性的逆向拍卖机制已难以满足企业日益复杂的采购需求的现状,需要研究采购环境下的多属性英式拍卖机制。首先,文中提出了基于边际成本递增的多属性拍卖模型。然后运用多属性效用理论,进一步研究了在多属性英式拍卖机制下投标人的最优投标策略及拍卖人最优评分规则。最后,基于边际成本递增的多属性拍卖模型,研究了不同因素及边际成本对拍卖人最优评分规则的影响。     

Common-value auction versus posted-price selling: an agent-based model approach

Previous theoretical work has compared a private-value auction and posted-price market, and an affiliated-value auction and a posted-price market to determine the selling method preferred by sellers. Much less, however, is known about the seller’s preferred selling method when the buyers have a common value of the item. Our objective is to determine if a first-price auction or a posted-price market provides a seller with the larger expected revenue when buyers have a common value of the item being sold. An agent-based posted-price market and an agent-based first-price common-value auction with a reserve price are developed to compare these selling methods. Holding the buyers’ uncertainty about the value of the item constant, the seller prefers the posted-price market when the seller has no uncertainty about the item’s value. When the seller has an equal level of uncertainty as the buyers, the seller’s expected revenue for each market is similar. As the seller’s uncertainty increases beyond the level of the buyers’ uncertainty, the auction with a reserve price eventually becomes the preferred choice.     

逆向竞拍在房地产业采购管理上的应用

本文分析了我国房地产企业在采购中采用逆向竞拍的可能性及其优缺点，并且给出了承建商在逆向竞拍中的可行策略。     

浅析网上逆向竞拍在现代采购中的应用

分析了网上逆向竞拍这一新型采购方式,从理论 准备、对比分析、实际应用三个方面分析了网上逆向竞拍在现 代采购中的应用原理与实务。     

多属性网上拍卖市场的发展现状和提升对策

多属性网上拍卖是电子采购的主要手段之一,具有广阔的市场发展空间。本文剖析了多属性网上拍卖的服务模式,设计了多属性网上平台架构,对多属性网上拍卖的应用范围和经济效益进行深入分析。通过分析多属性网上拍卖市场的发展现状,指出当前多属性网上拍卖市场存在欺诈、信用评价机制缺陷、以及有限的参与性等问题。在此基础上,提出了多属性网上拍卖市场的提升对策:设计满足激励相容的多属性拍卖机制,建立有效的多属性网上拍卖信用评价体系,开发智能化的代理软件以提高多属性网上拍卖的参与人数。     

Information dissemination in an experimentally based agent-based stock market

This paper builds an agent-based model to reproduce the results of an experimental stock market that studies how the market aggregates private information. The aim is to use experiments and agent-based modeling to analyze the trading behavior in experimental stock markets. Using the experimental environment and results, it is possible to formulate a hypothesis about the subjects’ behavior and thereby formalize (algorithmically) the trading behavior in an agent-based model. This may lead to a better understanding of how the market converges to an equilibrium and of the mechanism that allows dissemination of private information in the market.     

Trading places: An experimental comparison of reallocation mechanisms for priority queuing

In a laboratory experiment, we compare two auction mechanisms that are designed to improve a queue's efficiency by allowing customers to trade places. In the server‐initiated auction, the server, when idle, sells the right to be served next to the highest bidding customer in the queue and distributes the proceeds among the remaining customers. In the customer‐initiated auction, new arrivals can sequentially trade places with queued customers. We use two novel experimental protocols to examine the behavioral properties of both auction mechanisms. We find that both auction mechanisms improve a queue's efficiency on average and that both perform equally well in terms of efficiency gain. We also find evidence of the sunk‐cost effect but not of the endowment effect. Participants indicated that they found the server‐initiated auction a fairer mechanism than the customer‐initiated auction. When voting between the two auctions, the participants tended to favor the server‐initiated auction.     

Bundling and the Reduction of the Winner's Curse

The paper studies the effects of bundling on the bidding strategies and seller revenues in auctions when the bidders have common values for the objects. Bundling of objects before the auction reduces the problem of the winner's curse, and the bidders bid more aggressively. This does not mean that a bundled auction is always better for the seller's revenue. Indeed, there is another effect that makes the bundled auction preferable (from the seller's standpoint) if and only if the number of bidders is small. While this is the only effect present in an independent-private-values model, it does not vanish when bidders have pure common values for the objects. The paper concludes that a bundled auction is unambiguously better for the seller than separate auctions when the number of bidders is small.     

Electronic reverse auction configuration and its impact on buyer price and supplier perceptions of opportunism: A laboratory experiment

Buying organizations are increasingly using electronic reverse auctions (eRAs) to source from suppliers. However, recent quasi-experimental and field research has suggested that the use of this sourcing technique can create perceptions of opportunism among participating suppliers. Yet from the buyer's perspective, online reverse auctions can yield lower purchase prices. Given the many ways in which to configure on-line auctions, we extend existing research by using a laboratory experiment to investigate how different reverse auction configurations jointly influence bid price and suppliers’ perceptions of buyer opportunism.Our findings suggest that supplier bid prices decrease over time as they participate in more eRAs, regardless of the configuration of auction parameters. However, the combination of rank (versus price) visibility, high (versus low) supplier need to win a contract, and six (versus three) competitors was significantly more effective than other combinations of variables in immediately reducing bid prices. The data also indicated that when suppliers’ bids dropped substantially across auctions, their perceptions of opportunism increased. Notably, auction parameter combinations such as price visibility, three competitors, and low need for the contract yielded comparably low bids by the third auction, without any increases in perceived buyer opportunism.     

Money Out of Thin Air: The nationwide Narrowband pcs Auction

The Federal Communications Commission held its first auction of radio spectrum at the Nationwide Narrowband PCS Auction in July 1994. The simultaneous multiple-round auction, which lasted five days, was an ascending bid auction in which all licenses were offered simultaneously. This paper describes the auction rules and how bidders prepared for the auction. The full history of bidding is presented. Several questions for auction theory are discussed. In the end, the government collected $617 million for ten licenses. The auction was viewed by all as a huge success an excellent example of bringing economic theory to bear on practical problems of allocating scarce resources.     

拍卖中信息披露的方式对于市场供给影响研究

本文运用古诺模型来分析两个寡头分销商分别投向市场的货物供给数量,运用关联价值模型来分析拍卖,拍卖方式采用一级密封价格拍卖和二级密封价格拍卖,由于两种拍卖规程的不同,导致信息披露方式的不同,从而影响两个寡头分销商的最大供给数量。     

Implementing optimal procurement auctions with exogenous quality

In this paper, we consider the implementation of the optimal procurement auction outcome when there is a trade-off between price and quality for the buyer. The quality proposals of the competing firms are assumed to be exogenous and common knowledge. After defining the optimal auction, we characterize the discriminatory first score auction and the modified second score auction implementing it when the buyer is assumed to have the same information as the firms. Then we consider an auction which requires no specific information from the buyer and show that a second score auction followed by a negotiation stage can implement the optimal auction outcome under this more realistic assumption. Received: 30 March 2001 / Accepted: 14 December 2001 I am grateful to the anonymous referees for comments on an earlier version of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

在线逆向拍卖的一个聚类分批方法

在介绍在线逆向拍卖的基本流程之后，分析了成功进行在线逆向拍卖的前提条件，分批正是其中非常重要的一项准备工作。然后，从聚类分析的思想出发，为满足采购方在分批中的不同原则，对聚类分析的样本距离公式进行了适当修改，得到了可以增加拍卖包吸引力，尽可能节约采购成本的一个分批方法。     

Validating an agent-based model of the Zipf׳s Law: A discrete Markov-chain approach

This study discusses the validation of an agent-based model of emergent city systems with heterogeneous agents. To this end, it proposes a simplified version of the original agent-based model and subjects it to mathematical analysis. The proposed model is transformed into an analytically tractable discrete Markov model, and its city size distribution is examined. Its discrete nature allows the Markov model to be used to validate the algorithms of computational agent-based models. We show that the Markov chains lead to a power-law distribution when the ranges of migration options are randomly distributed across the agent population. We also identify sufficient conditions under which the Markov chains produce the Zipf׳s Law, which has never been done within a discrete framework. The conditions under which our simplified model yields the Zipf׳s Law are in agreement with, and thus validate, the configurations of the original heterogeneous agent-based model.     

Calibration of a model of declining prices in cattle auctions

Using data from dairy cattle auctions plus independent appraisals of the cattle sold, this paper is able to verify the existence of the “declining price anomaly”: prices decline over the course of the auction, with the main decline occurring towards the end of the day. We show that the data are consistent with a simple model of sequential auctions of goods with independent values, and examine distributions which replicate the important features of the data. The crucial feature driving the price declines in the model is a limited capacity for purchases by the participants in the auction, which in turn decreases competition for the final units in the auction.     

Online reverse auctions and their role in buyer–supplier relationships

Despite the move in recent years towards supplier partnerships, buying firms need at times to make use of competitive procurement strategies for certain purchases. This study examines the impact of reverse auctions on buyer–supplier relationships through six case studies, analysing primarily the supplier perspective through participant interviews. The authors identify that there are potential benefits for both parties in a reverse auction, which can offer tendering and transactional cost advantages. For buyers, it offers a competitive procurement process. The effect on relationships will depend on the extent to which buyers employ the auction as a price weapon, or whether it is used primarily as a process improvement tool.     

An agent-based model for financial vulnerability

This study addresses a critical regulatory shortfall by developing a platform to extend stress testing from a microprudential approach to a dynamic, macroprudential approach. This paper describes the ensuing agent-based model for analyzing the vulnerability of the financial system to asset- and funding-based fire sales. The model captures the dynamic interactions of agents in the financial system extending from the suppliers of funding through the intermediation and transformation functions of the bank/dealers to the financial institutions that use the funds to trade in the asset markets. The model replicates the key finding that it is the reaction to initial losses, rather than the losses themselves, that determine the extent of a crisis. By building on a detailed mapping of the transformations and dynamics of the financial system, the agent-based model provides an avenue toward risk management that can illuminate the pathways for the propagation of key crisis dynamics such as fire sales and funding runs.     

Agent-based modeling of systemic risk in the European banking sector

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - In this paper, we use an agent-based simulation combined with innovative calibration techniques to model the European banking system as accurately...