Online reputation -"feedback"- mechanism aim to mitigate the moral hazard problem associated with spatially distant exchange among strangers by providing traders with the type of information available in small groups, where members are frequently involved in another's dealings. We compare...

People often observe others' decisions before deciding themselves. Using eBay data for DVD auctions we explore the consequences of neglecting nonsalient information when making such inferences. We show that bidders herd into auctions with more existing bids, even if these are a signal of...

Many of the options available to decision makers, such as college majors and romantic partners, can become unavailable if sufficient effort is not invested in them (taking classes, sending flowers). The question asked in this work is whether a threat of disappearance changes the way people value...

Preferences inferred from choice are more likely to favor the alternative that is superior with respect to the prominent (most important or salient) attribute than are preferences inferred from matching (direct tradeoff) judgments. This prominence effect violates standard models of rational...

Most business-to-business (B2B) auctions are used to transact large quantities of homogeneous goods, and therefore use multiunit mechanisms. In the B2B context, bidders often have increasing returns to scale, or synergies. We compare two commonly used auction formats for selling multiple...

This note reconsiders some of the issues raised by Kadane and Larkey, and Harsanyi, and briefly discusses some relevant empirical results.

This study investigated the effects of six communication/information conditions on the outcomes reached by three-person groups playing a characteristic function game. The game was played by a monopolist and two weaker players. The conditions consisted of six combinations which varied the amount...

Reciprocity in feedback giving distorts the production and content of reputation information in a market, hampering trust and trade efficiency. Guided by feedback patterns observed on eBay and other platforms, we run laboratory experiments to investigate how reciprocity can be managed by changes...

We compare how experienced procurement managers and students solve the newsvendor problem. We find that managers broadly exhibit the same kind of pull-to-center bias as students do. Also, managers use information and task training no better than students. The performance of managers is...

Electronic reputation or "feedback" mechanisms aim to mitigate the moral hazard problems associated with exchange among strangers by providing the type of information available in more traditional close-knit groups, where members are frequently involved in one another's dealings. In this paper,...