为何招标采购偏好“低于均价中标法”

低于均价中标法招标机制被广泛应用于各类招标采购中,但其合理性存在大量争议。文章首先在理论上证明了标准低于均价中标法下投标人不存在随真实成本严格递增的贝叶斯纳什均衡报价策略,然后基于某大型电力公司的招标采购数据,对投标行为进行实证分析,发现低于均价中标法下投标人报价可以反映其真实成本,且该机制在时间趋势上既可以激励投标人压缩利润,降低采购成本,又可以引导投标人形成稳定的低利润预期,指导投标人报"合理低价",防止"赢者诅咒"现象的发生。以上发现均说明低于均价中标法在业界被广泛应用的合理性,但这种招标机制也易于催生投标人间串谋。文章研究为低于均价中标法的合理使用提出了管理建议。     

Competitive bidding with a bid floor

We study competitive bidding with an explicit bid floor, motivated by minimum wage legislation and minimum labor standards. We derive the equilibrium strategies in, and compare the expected procurement costs among, the first‐price, second‐price, English, and Dutch auctions in a private‐cost model. For the English auction, we also consider a variant in which each seller can terminate the auction by jumping down to sell at the price floor. We find that the first‐price auction and the aforementioned jump‐down English auction lead to a lower expected procurement cost than under the second‐price auction and the standard English auction.     

BAMs的均衡报价性质及其对合谋的激励

近年来报价平均方法（BAMs）在我国建筑业招投标中得到广泛应用,本文研究了报价平均方法的均衡报价行为及其对竞争者之间合谋的激励。本文证明报价平均方法会使竞标企业有激励互相抬高价格,报价脱离成本,造成市场资源配置无效率,促进企业合谋等更严重的问题。报价平均方法并非解决最低价中标制度产生的“过度压价”或“赢家诅咒”问题的好办法。     

Going, Going, Gone! A Swift Tour of Auction Theory and its Applications

This paper provides a swift tour of auction theory and its applications. Among the questions it considers are: How much do bidders bid in commonly studied single-object auctions? How efficient are these auctions? How much revenue do they generate? Which single-object auction maximizes the seller’s expected revenue? What is the best way to auction incentive contracts? And, how efficient and complex are multi-object auctions?     

Multiunit Auctions in Which Almost Every Bid Wins

We consider multiunit auctions in which there are enough units so that each bidder but one wins every unit on which he bids. We characterize the equilibrium bidding strategy for three different payment rules: the pay-your-bid auction, the uniform-price auction in which the price equals the lowest winning bid, and the uniform-price auction in which the price equals the highest losing bid. We also consider the Vickrey pricing rule. In the case we examine, the auctions are all efficient and thus are revenue equivalent. The equilibria illustrate several phenomona that cannot arise in single-unit auctions. Even though the auctions are expected-revenue equivalent, different bidders may end up paying very different amounts. Also, in contrast to single-unit auctions, changing the seller's reservation price affects revenues, even if it remains below the lowest possible value to bidders.     

Corporate entertainment expenses and corruption in public procurement

Viewing corporate entertainment of public officials as a form of bribes, Korea recently adopted a strong regulation against such practice (the Antigraft Act of 2016). In this paper, we investigate whether the regulation succeeded in reducing corruption in public procurement. An examination of the procurement system in Korea suggests that bribe-paying firms submit lower bids to procurement auctions than non-bribe-paying firms and that the difference in bid aggressiveness between bribe-paying and non-bribe-paying firms can be used as an indicator of the prevalence of corruption. Using the bidding data of firms participating in Korea Online E-Procurement System (KONEPS) auctions, we document that this indicator of corruption declined after the new regulation was adopted. We conclude that the new regulation reduced the entertainment-expense channel of corruption in public procurement.     

Auction Markets for Evaluations

When the value of a product or service is uncertain, outcomes can be inefficient. A market for evaluations can theoretically increase efficiency by voluntarily eliciting an evaluation that would otherwise not be provided. This paper uses a controlled laboratory experiment to test the performance of four market mechanisms to provide product evaluations. The mechanisms considered are derived from the oft studied uniform price sealed bid, discriminatory price sealed bid, English clock auction, and Dutch clock auction. Our results indicate for this nonrivalrous product that (i) each of these institutions improves social welfare and (ii) the performances of the four mechanisms are equivalent. This second point is particularly noteworthy given that differing behavior is routinely observed in traditional private value auctions.     

(Anti-)Competitive effect of joint bidding: evidence from ODA procurement auctions

Using auction data on Japanese ODA procurement, I empirically examined whether joint bidding has a pro- or anti-competitive effect, particularly for local firms. In auction theory, the joint bidding effect depends on theories. If joint bidding reduces barriers to entry for potential bidders with limited financial and technical resources, it is pro-competitive. When bidders exploit collusive schemes under cover of joint bidding, the anti-competitive effect is realized. By the OLS and treatment effect models, I found that joint bidding in general does not foster competition, but it has a competitive effect on local firms in developing countries. J. Japanese Int. Economies 18 (3) (2004) 416–439.     

The Determinants of Price in Internet Auctions of Used Cars

This study analyzes how auction, seller, and product factors influence the price premium in an eBay used car auction market. In auctions with at least one bid, the reputation of the seller, title status, and the time the auction ended influenced the price premium on the highest bid. For auctions that resulted in a sale, cars with clear title and dealers were able to secure significantly greater price premiums, but seller reputation had no significant effect. Using a binary logit model, cars had a greater probability of selling if the seller had a better reputation. The quality of the presentation and number of pictures did not enhance the price premium in any of the models.

Repeated Auctions with Impatient Bidders and Externalities

This article studies collusion in repeated auctions both among patient and among impatient bidders when the outside option of the participation constraint is endogenous due to negative externalities. We find that (i) there are no bidding wars along the equilibrium path both for patient and for impatient bidders; compared to the optimal collusive bidding scheme for patient bidders, that for impatient bidders involves (ii) a lower threshold type above which bidding starts when externalities are small or (iii) more frequent jumps in a bidding scheme when externalities are large. The results carry an empirical implication that we should observe either a higher probability of sales or a higher number of bid levels in auctions that are repeatedly offered in unstable markets than those offered in stable markets.     

Are local governments maximizing land revenue? Evidence from China

This paper examines how political considerations affect local officials' revenue maximization behaviors in the context of urban land conveyance in China. Particularly, we analyze government intervention based on local officials' choice of two land auction types, namely, “English auction” and “two-stage auction”. The latter presumably serves as a tool of government intervention. We aim to address the research question: “Are local governments maximizing land revenue?” The major findings are threefold. First, for cities with higher housing prices, two-stage auctions are adopted more frequently than English auctions. In addition, land parcels in these “hot” cities adopt two-stage auctions more frequently during sensitive political events, suggesting that local officials respond positively to the real estate regulation policy from central government. Second, when city leaders are more incentivized to promote economic performance, they respond less positively to rises in housing prices. Third, such interventionist behavior results in a significantly depressed land price and housing price. Despite its intention of improving public welfare, this interventionism can susceptibly cause problems of misallocation and corruption.     

Bidding off the wall in common value auctions

This paper examines the practice of phantom bidding in common value auctions with asymmetric information. Unlike in private value auctions it is very difficult to profit from phantom bidding even if the auctioneer observes the number of interested bidders. We find that the auctioneer is worse off submitting low bids or mixing between his participation strategies. Phantom bidding can generate higher revenues if a single bidder with a high value estimate is likely to be present at the auction. Systematic observation of an isolated high estimate requires negative correlation across bidders’ information that is atypical in a common value environment.     

Competition and Prices in USDA Commodity Procurement

We evaluate United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food procurement auctions. The Department spends nearly $1 billion a year for products for domestic feeding programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, and another $2.5 billion for international food programs. USDA's purchasing relics primarily on auction mechanisms designed to induce “hard” manufacturer price competition. We compare private-sector prices to low bids in 25,000 auctions, and find that typical private-sector prices substantially exceed USDA low bids for comparable products. We also assess the effects of competition on low bids. Low bids fall as the number of bidders increases, and the effects are nonlinear. Additional bidders have a very small effect on prices when there are already five or six bidders, but a stronger effect in markets with only one or two bidders. Even in this highly transparent bidding environment, competition matters.     

Evaluating car license auction mechanisms: Theory and experimental evidence

In Singapore and many fast-growing cities of China, auctions are used to implement a quota system of car ownership. Three such cities where influential auction formats have been developed for allocating car licenses are the Asian metropolises of Singapore, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with other cities following suit. The current paper examines car auction formats both theoretically and experimentally, with the purpose of maximizing social welfare by improving efficiency and reducing misunderstandings. Reaction time is introduced as an essential non-economic factor of model bidding behaviors in these car license auctions. At the theoretical level, this paper finds that reaction time causes inefficient allocations in the Shanghai auction, but not in the Singapore or Guangzhou auctions. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical prediction that late bids prevail in all of these auction formats, but only lead to inefficient allocations in the Shanghai auction. Additionally, the subjects' reaction time in the Shanghai treatment was scored by conducting a number comparison task, finding a positive correlation between the probability of winning and the reaction time score.     

The Size of the Affiliation Effect

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate whether the affiliation effect is of only marginal importance or it is of the same order of magnitude as the winner's curse and competition effects. This paper is an application of Pinkse and Tan in which they show that bids can be decreasing in the number of bidders in private value auctions provided that the bidders' private values are affiliated. They argue that the affiliation effect is also present in common value auctions. If the affiliation effect is substantial then a regression of bids on the number of bidders will not help in distinguishing between the common and private value paradigms. We use the Offshore Continental Shelf auction data-set to estimate these effects and find that the affiliation effect is smaller than the other two effects in terms of size. Therefore, at least in this application it appears unlikely that the affiliation effect would often offset the competition effect.     

浅析“招拍挂”与地价的关系

2009年是"地王"频发的一年,土地价格惊心动魄地上扬,甚至一些地方出现了"面粉比面包贵"的非正常现象。"招拍挂"引入市场竞争机制对土地资源进行配置,是实现土地价值的良好途径,但其供给垄断和需求竞争的模式及"价高者得"的特点,同时也会推高地价,对价格机制产生破坏,造成市场失灵的情况发生。本文从介绍城市土地配置方式的转变入手,基于土地价格机制理论分析了"招拍挂"与地价的影响,最后提出了改良"招拍挂"的建议。     

Competition and collusion in a government procurement auction market

This paper tests the structure performance hypothesis by examining a highway construction industry in Florida. In the first-price sealed bid auction literature, there is little evidence on how many bidders are required for these markets to be competitive. Two different indicators are used to capture the transition from collusion to competition—a discontinuous effect of the number of bidders on winning bid price, and an associative effect of repeat bidding of a contractor with the same set of firms. The results suggest that winning bids decrease as the number of bidders rises until there are about six to eight firms. Since subsequent entry has no effect on the winning bid price, it is concluded that the highway construction market becomes competitive with about eight bidders.     

Reservation Values and Regret in Laboratory First‐Price Auctions: Context and Bidding Behavior

Recent articles hypothesize that an asymmetry in regret motivates aggressive bidding in laboratory first‐price auctions. Subjects emphasize potential earnings foregone from being outbid. Proposed motivators of this asymmetry include the one‐to‐one relationship in the auction between winning and positive earnings and the ex post knowledge that bidders who do not win the auction know they earned less than the winning bidder. We design a novel implementation of the first‐price auction environment in which these characteristics are not present, while leaving unchanged the expected‐earnings maximizing bidding strategy against any fixed beliefs about the bidding behavior of others. Bidding is significantly less aggressive in this treatment. These findings support the hypothesis that aggressive bidding is motivated in part by features of the protocol for incentivizing subjects that are not essential to the auction environment.     

Exclusive Dealing through Resellers in Auctions with Stochastic Bidder Participation

This paper demonstrates that a seller prefers to exclude final consumers from an auction and sell only to resellers when these resellers can gain access, at a cost, to a sufficiently bigger market than the seller himself. The intuition is that resellers recoup their expenses for marketing the item by reselling it to final consumers. If some consumers participate in the first auction and are outbid by the resellers, then their values for the item are relatively low. Outbidding part of their customer base is “bad news” for the resellers, and this depresses their bids when consumers compete with them. The socially optimal and revenue-maximizing choices of auction format may not coincide: Restricting participation of consumers may be socially optimal but privately suboptimal and vice-versa. The results suggest that (i) the exclusion of final consumers in some auctions may not be driven by transaction cost considerations, and (ii) sellers should not necessarily sell directly to consumers, even though new technologies allow them to do so at essentially zero cost, unless they can access a sufficiently large portion of the market.     

A Consistent Econometric Test for Bid Interdependence in Repeated Second-Price Auctions with Posted Prices

In repeated second-price experimental auctions, the winning bid is normally posted after each round. The posting of these winning prices after each round can result in bids submitted in later rounds to be interdependent with posted prices from earlier rounds. Several approaches in the past have tried to scrutinize their experimental data for value interdependence by regressing bids on lagged market prices or lagged bids and ignoring the inherent endogeneity problem. This paper introduces a formal test for bid interdependence in repeated second-price auctions with posted prices using a dynamic panel model. We then apply this test to formally check the presence of bid interdependence in three datasets used in previous studies.