We consider an auction in which the behavior of one potential bidder departs mildly from full rationality. We show that the presence of such an inexpert bidder can be enough to discourage all of an infinitely large population of fully rational potential bidders from entering an auction....

This paper presents an equilibrium explanation for the persistence of naive bidding. Specifically, we consider a common value auction in which a "naive" bidder (who ignores the Winner's Curse) competes against a fully rational bidder (who understands that her rival is not). We show that the...

Recent auction theory and experimental results document strategic demand reduction by bidders in uniform-price auctions. The present article extends this area of research to consider the effects of varying the number of bidders. Our theoretical model predicts that demand reduction should...

Supply chains today routinely use third parties for many strategic activities, such as manufacturing, R&D, or software development. These activities often include relationship-specific investment on the part of the vendor, while final outcomes can be uncertain. Therefore, writing complete...

This paper considers a re-sourcing setting in which a qualified supplier (the incumbent) and multiple suppliers which have not yet been qualified (the entrants) compete in an open-bid descending auction for a single-supplier contract. Due to the risk of supplier nonperformance, the buyer only...

We investigate learning-by-doing in the newsvendor inventory problem. An earlier study observed that decision makers tend to anchor their orders around average demand and fail to adjust sufficiently towards the expected profit-maximizing order. Principles of behavioral theory suggest some...

Over the past two decades, researchers in operations management have increasingly leveraged laboratory experiments to identify key behavioral insights. These experiments inform behavioral theories of operations management, impacting domains including inventory, supply chain management, queuing,...

One of the main assumptions in research on designing supply contracts is that decision makers act in a way that maximizes their expected profit. A number of laboratory experiments demonstrated that this assumption does not hold – specifically, faced with uncertain demand, decision-makers place...