Number Of Bidders Research Articles

Misdescription and Misrepresentation Liability Arising Out of Art Auctions in New Zealand

Assumptions that successful bidders carry the risk in terms of artwork that is either mis-described or misrepresented by art auctioneers is challenged, for New Zealand at least. This is because descriptions of works to be auctioned are invariably proffered in sale catalogs as unqualified assertions of fact (or opinion based on fact), inviting reliance. Further, consumer protection legislation in New Zealand overrides privity of contract, enabling courts to give relief where the auction contract terms are found to be unfairly weighted against the successful bidder, as a consumer. For New Zealand, these arguments may be more persuasively made, given a significant number of bidders are members of the general public.

Do Project Labor Agreements Reduce the Number of Bidders on Public Projects? The Case of Community Colleges in California

Project labor agreements (PLAs) are commonly found on larger California public works in urban areas. Nonetheless, they remain a controversial public procurement practice. One issue not examined in the literature is whether as some critics suggest, PLAs reduce the number of bidders on public projects. Analyzing 263 bid openings for community college construction in California over the period 2007 to 2016, this first-ever study of PLA effects on the number of bids finds that controlling for the location where the project occurred, the size of projects, the business cycle and the season when the project was let, the number of bidders on a project was not altered by the presence or absence of project of PLAs. This study also finds that relative to engineer’s estimates available on 99 of these projects, the lowest bids on prevailing wage projects were not higher than the lowest bids on projects without PLA agreements.

Value for money in procurement of urban bus services – Competitive tendering versus negotiated contracts: Recent New Zealand experience

The new Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) recently introduced by the New Zealand government for local public transport services involves a mix of competitively-tendered and negotiated bus contracts in the main metropolitan areas. Most features of the procurement procedures and almost all the contract terms and conditions are common to both types of contract. This has provided a rare opportunity internationally to compare the impacts of the alternative procurement methods on contract prices.The paper analyses the prices for the tendered and negotiated bus contracts in NZ's two largest metropolitan areas, Auckland (50 contracts, c.1100 buses) and Wellington (16 contracts, c.400 buses). Key findings are that: (i) for the tendered contracts, significant cost reductions were achieved compared with previous tendering rounds, reflecting the considerable increase in the number of bidders per contract; and (ii) for the negotiated contracts, (gross) costs averaged about 10–15% higher (Auckland) and 30–35% higher (Wellington) than the equivalent tendered costs.These cost disparities reflected the weak position of the regional councils in their contract negotiations with the operators, as a result of the councils not having recourse to tendering as a fallback negotiating position and coming under considerable time pressures to introduce the new services.

Reserve price signaling in first-price auctions with an uncertain number of bidders

We study first-price auctions in which the number of bidders is the seller’s private information, and investigate the use of a reserve price to signal this private information. We use the D1 criterion to refine the set of equilibria and characterize a symmetric separating equilibrium outcome, where the reserve price increases with the number of bidders. The key driving force is a certain form of single-crossing property. With more bidders, the seller can afford a high reserve price that discourages competition in the auction, for the winning bid is more likely to be higher.

Crazy gamblers or cautious investors? Evidence from a peer‐to‐peer market in China

AbstractBy data of 10,357 individual investors from Renrendai.com, an established peer‐to‐peer (P2P) lending platform in China over the period of 2011–2014, we examine whether investors’ prior investment outcomes influence their subsequent risk‐taking behavior in the credit market. We find strong evidence that a prior trading loss induces greater subsequent risk‐taking. Specifically, investors decrease their number of bids and the bidding amount; and choose listings with a lower interest rate and higher credit grade. The investors who obtain more prior gains become more cautious and take on less posterior risk. Overall, this study complements the lack of relevant research in the credit market.

Estimation in English auctions with unobserved heterogeneity

AbstractWe propose a framework for identification and estimation of a private values model with unobserved heterogeneity from bid data in English auctions, using variation in the number of bidders across auctions, and extend the framework to settings where the number of bidders is not cleanly observed in each auction. We illustrate our method on data from eBay Motors auctions. We find that unobserved heterogeneity is important, accounting for two thirds of price variation after controlling for observables, and that welfare measures would be dramatically misestimated if unobserved heterogeneity were ignored.

Equivalence of canonical matching models

This paper offers expected revenue and pricing equivalence results for canonical matching models. The equivalence of these models is centered on the assumption that there are large numbers of buyers and sellers, and the contact decisions of buyers to sellers are made independently. Therefore, the distribution of buyers to sellers is approximated by the Poisson distribution. The list of canonical matching models includes the models developed by Burdett and Judd (1983), Shimer (2005), and McAfee (1993). In the Burdett and Judd model, buyers post prices and the equilibrium features price dispersion because identical buyers play mixed strategies. In the Shimer model, sellers post a vector of prices corresponding to different buyer types. In equilibrium, all identical buyers pay the same price. In the McAfee model, equilibrium pricing is determined by simple second price auctions. McAfee's model also features price dispersion because the number of bidders at each auction is stochastic.

Should Auctions Be Transparent?

We investigate the role of market transparency in repeated first-price auctions. We consider a setting with private and independent values across bidders. The values are assumed to be perfectly persistent over time.We analyze the first-price auction under three distinct disclosure regimes regarding the bid and award history. Of particular interest is the minimal disclosure regime, in which each bidder only learns privately whether he won or lost the auction at the end of each round. In equilibrium, the winner of the initial auction lowers his bids over time, while losers keep their bids constant, in anticipation of the winner’s lower future bids. This equilibrium is efficient, and all information is eventually revealed. Importantly, this disclosure regime does not give rise to pooling equilibria.We contrast the minimal disclosure setting with the case in which all bids are public, and the case in which only the winner’s bids are public. In these settings, an inefficient pooling equilibrium with low revenues always exists with a sufficiently large number of bidders.

Playing the field in all-pay auctions

We provide the first examination of all-pay auctions using continuous-time protocols, allowing subjects to adjust their bid at will, observe payoffs almost instantaneously, and gain more experience through repeated-play than in previous, discrete-time, implementations. Unlike our predecessors—who generally find overbidding—we observe underbidding relative to Nash equilibrium. To test the predictions of evolutionary models, we vary the number of bidders and prizes across treatments. If two bidders compete for a single prize, evolutionary models predict convergence to equilibrium. If three bidders compete for two prizes, evolutionary models predict non-convergent cyclical behavior. Consistent with evolutionary predictions, we observe cyclical behavior in both auctions and greater instability in two-prize auctions. These results suggest that evolutionary models can provide practitioners in the field with additional information about long-run aggregate behavior that is absent from conventional models.

Sample Spacings for Identification: The Case of English Auctions With Absentee Bidding

This paper presents new nonparametric identification results for ascending auctions with independent private values. The standard identification approach is infeasible in the motivating setting, because absentee bidding conceals the number of bidders. I exploit insights from the statistics literature about the stochastic ordering of adjacent sample spacings. I show how to use such sample spacings to set-identify structural features, using an incomplete model and without knowing all highest bids or the number of bidders. Applying the sample spacing method to a small sample of wine auctions, I show that it identifies informative bounds on policy-relevant counterfactuals. It turns out that Sotheby's restricts full exploitation of the exclusion principle of optimal reserve prices. As a result, sellers set sub-optimally low reserve prices. They benefit up to 13% from adopting a common reserve price rule equal to 120% of the Wine Department's pre-auction value estimate.

Predicting project cost overrun levels in bidding stage using ensemble learning

ABSTRACT Predicting project cost overruns in the bidding stage has undergone significant changes with the application of state-of-the-art techniques. Both modeling techniques and domain knowledge should be integrated to enhance predictions of cost performance. This study developed an ensemble-learning classification model to predict the expected cost-overrun levels of public projects and derive explanatory factors and key predictors. A database of 234 public-sector projects in South Korea was used, including project characteristics (i.e., project delivery method, project types, cost, and schedule) in combination with bidding characteristics (i.e., award method, number of bidders, bid to estimate ratio, number of joint ventures). The results yielded an average accuracy of 61.41% for five model runs. Furthermore, information on the project type being constructed is an important contributor to prediction accuracy. Results of the model enable project owners and managers to screen projects that are expected to incur excessive cost overruns and to anticipate budget loss during the bidding stage and before contracts are finalized.

Effect of public procurement regulation on competition and cost-effectiveness

This study empirically investigates the impact of public procurement regulation quality on the competition for tenders and the cost-effectiveness of awarded contracts, by employing the World Bank’s Benchmarking Public Procurement and EuroPAM Public Procurement quality scores. Using extensive data on public procurement in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and Macedonia, the analysis in this paper shows that higher quality public procurement regulatory regimes are associated with higher levels of competition and cost-effectiveness. Improved regulation quality significantly increases the number of bidders and the probability that the procurement price is lower than the estimated cost.

Joint Tendering in the European Economic Area

Summary The EU regulation of public procurement strives to create a set of rules that would enable the contracting authority to choose the best bid. In order to do so, it also tries to widen the circle of potential bidders by enabling their horizontal (consortia) as well as vertical (subcontracting) cooperation. Such cooperation may enable the participation of undertakings that would not be otherwise in position to bid on their own, thus increasing the number of bidders and promoting competition among them. At the same time, such arrangements may be contrary to competition law which prohibits coordination of competitors. Joint tendering is ubiquitous within the European Economic Area, and yet the case-law on its compliance with competition law is strikingly divergent. This article provides an overview of the current state of play and some suggestions for future practice.

Price/time/intellectual efficiency of procurement: Uncovering the related factors in Chinese public authorities

High efficiency is one of the important goals of public procurement (PP); however, research on PP efficiency is still not sufficient, especially in the context of developing countries. With a focus on the purchasing phase, this study measures three aspects of procurement efficiency of public authorities: price, time and intellectual efficiency. The relevant factors of these three aspects are explored and examined. 838 PP contracts in Chengdu city, China were collected in the first half of 2018 using a web crawler programme. Regression method is used to analyse the data. This study finds that the price efficiency of PP is negatively associated with the implementation of green public procurement (GPP) but is positively associated with the evaluation method (the weight of bidding price during evaluation) and the number of bidders. Time efficiency is negatively associated with GPP implementation. Intellectual efficiency is negatively associated with the size of the procurement. This study accomplishes the following: I. extends research to a still relatively unexplored context: developing countries; II. adds to the studies on public procurement efficiency; and III. investigates the influence of GPP implementation on PP efficiency in a developing country.

Análise da modalidade regime diferenciado de contratação nas licitações do DNIT

Desde 2012 o Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes (DNIT) vem utilizando o Regime Diferenciado de Contratação (RDC) e pesquisas estão sendo realizadas para verificar a efetividade dos seus objetivos. A proposta deste artigo consiste na avaliação das contribuições relacionadas à eficiência na aplicação do RDC nas obras de infraestrutura de transportes do DNIT. Para tanto, foram verificados prazos de licitações, descontos ofertados e o número de concorrentes de 91 lotes de obras de RDC, cujos editais de licitação foram divulgados no período de 2015 a 2017, nas diversas unidades regionais do DNIT e na sua sede em Brasília. Ao comparar os valores obtidos com os encontrados na bibliografia, observa-se que nas licitações de RDC houve uma redução nos prazos médios dos certames e um aumento no desconto médio ofertado, sendo mais evidente quando os orçamentos não são sigilosos. Os resultados da pesquisa contribuem como referência aos legisladores que pretendem aprimorar ou popularizar o RDC, bem como aos gestores do DNIT na condução dos processos licitatórios.

Parking reservation disturbances

This paper considers an auction-based parking reservation problem where a parking management platform is the auctioneer and the drivers are bidders. The platform is in charge of multiple homogeneous parking spaces. A winner may leave earlier or occupy the parking space longer than the time he has reserved. The phenomena are known as (ex post) demand disturbances, which can occur only after the last auction terminates. The platform may penalize or compensate a driver who causes demand disturbance. Besides, investigation is conducted into three types of driver behaviors, namely, gain/loss neutrality, loss aversion, and gain seeking, and the reference effects are examined. An effective multi-stage Vickrey–Clarke–Groves (MS-VCG) auction mechanism is raised. Expect for the disturbance makers, the MS-VCG auction is capable to achieve allocative efficiency, incentive compatibility, and individual rationality. As shown by computational results, in the absence of reference effect, both penalty and compensation rise with the number of bidders. If drivers are gain/loss neutral, the average utility of winners reaches the highest, while the penalty and compensation reach the lowest, as compared to loss-averse and gain-seeking drivers. The total VCG payment received by the auctioneer increases with the reference price. Finally, based on our proposed model, the platform has the ability to deal with the demand disturbances by holding a certain number of parking spaces that are not auctioned for reservation.

Vliv zvolených faktorů na výsledek elektronických reverzních aukcí

In the study, we focus on examining the impact of selected factors on the results of electronic reverse auctions and thus the savings achieved. The study extends the knowledge of extant literature to empirical insights and uses currently the broadest sample of approximately 16,000 e-auction cases. The study confirms that the savings calculation method and the use of a comparative or initial price affect the outcome of the auction as well as the individual selected factors entering the model (e-auction value, number of changes, number of extensions, number of bidders, number of items).

Disclosure Policies in All-pay Auctions with Endogenous Entry

This paper examines the effects of disclosing the actual number of bidders in contests with endogenous stochastic entry. I study a standard all-pay auction in which bidders' valuations are commonly known but their participation decisions private. Each potential bidder has to incur an entry cost in order to participate in the auction. It is found that fully concealing the information about the number of participating bidders elicits a higher expected revenue than fully revealing the information if and only if the bidders differ too much in the net gain from winning. In addition, the revenue ranking on disclosure policies varies across the settings with one-sided exogenous entry, one-sided entry cost, and one-sided endogenous entry.

Disentangling Risk-Aversion and Loss Aversion in First-Price Auctions: An Empirical Approach

We develop a model which combines general risk-averse preferences with anticipated loss aversion to explain bidding behavior in the first-price auction, where both risk-aversion and loss aversion induce ‘overbidding.’ We then show that the nonparametric utility function and loss aversion coefficient are point-identified by the experiment data with exogenous variation in the number of bidders. Moreover, we develop a structural method with a flexible utility function based on Bernstein polynomials. Our method predicts the data well and the counterfactual analysis shows that loss aversion explains 85 ∼ 90% of overbidding in the data.

Association of Number of Bidders and Minimum Bid Ratio (AEr) with Effect of E-bidding of Different Project

The purpose of this research is to analyze the relation between the number of bidders versus the minimum bid ratio (AEr)/percentage below the initial engineer’s estimate to type and size of project within Road Divisions Butwal and Shivapur. Bidding data of four consecutive fiscal years starting from 072/73 of two Road Divisions which are already completed its procurement stage were analyzed. The percentage below/contract awarded cost is directly proportional or a significant correlation was found with the number of the participated bidder in any project s of both divisions during the data study period. Bidders have to bid below 20% of the initial estimate that was found to get a project in hand by contractors and they are willing to bid low for the utilization of resources, types of equipment, manpower, and also to get experiences. This research revealed correlation coefficients between the number of bidders and percentage below engineers' estimates are 0.61 for the Butwal division and 0.67 for the Shivapur division. Correlation coefficients 0.82 and 0.83 was found in Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar. Percentage below engineers' estimate depends on 67 and 69% on the number of bidders in Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar respectively. E-bidding helped to promote competition along with low bidding. As there is 17% below with only hardcopy bidding but with e-bid the below percentages rises to 28% with more number of bidder per project. Improvement in existing offer granting framework with additional capability rules ought to be engaged by doling out the weight in the monitory term, soliciting a technique from the proclamation, upgraded e-offering framework, and affirmation for venture exhibitions of the undertaking before execution. This research would be useful for those who are involving in policy making and governing agencies like Public Procurement Monitoring Office and for making necessary amendments in existing rules.