Theoretical and Laboratory Investigation of Buyer-Determined Procurement Auctions

买家决定的采购拍卖现在被企业广泛使用，作为从其他企业购买所需物资和零部件的一种方式。这些“B-to-B”拍卖是由许多商业拍卖供应商在线进行的。它们通常使用经济学家会归类为不具约束力的反向拍卖的拍卖规则。投标人相互竞争(因此这是一种反向拍卖)，但获胜者不一定是出价最低的供应商。相反，买家根据最终报价和关于供应商的进一步信息来决定谁赢得了合同。尽管这些拍卖得到了广泛的应用，但经济学家们还没有对它们进行研究。这一奖项资助了在这些拍卖中建立正式的博弈论行为模型以及一系列实验室实验，以检验该理论关于拍卖设计的特定特征对拍卖结果的影响的预测。这项研究增进了我们对一种广泛使用的采购方法的理解。这项研究的结果使企业和政府实体受益，这些企业和政府实体利用采购拍卖寻找合适的供应商。研究表明，拍卖方法的具体改变可以提高拍卖方法的效率，使买家能够快速找到最符合自己需求的供应商。

Buyer-determined procurement auctions are now widely used by businesses as a way to purchases needed supplies and parts from other businesses. These 'B-to-B' auctions are conducted on-line by a number of commercial auction providers. They typically use auction rules that economists would classify as non-binding reverse auctions. Bidders compete against each other (hence it is a reverse auction) but the winner is not necessarily the supplier with the lowest bid. Rather, buyers decide who wins the contract, based on the final quotes and further information on the suppliers.While these auctions are widely used, they have not been studied by economists. This award funds the development of a formal game-theoretic model of behavior in these auctions as well as a series of lab experiments that test the theory's predictions about the effects of specific features of the auction design on auction outcomes.This research advances our understanding of a procurement methods that is in wide use. The results of this research benefit businesses as well as government entitities that use procurement auctions to find appropriate suppliers. The research demonstrates that specific changes in auction methods can improve the efficiency of the auction method, so that buyers can quickly locate the supplier who best meets their needs.