In eBay s Buy-it-Now auctions sellers can post prices at which buyers can purchase a good prior to an auction. We study how sellers set Buy-it-Now prices when buyers have independent private values for a single object for sale. We test the predictions of a model by combining the real auction...

Anchoring is one of the most studied and robust behavioral biases, but there is little knowledge about its persistence in strategic settings. This article studies the role of anchoring bias in private-value auctions. We test experimentally two different anchor types. The announcement of a random...

We study experimentally the effect of bargaining power in sequential trading mechanisms that offer the possibility to trade at a fixed price before an auction. In the "Buy-It-Now" format, the seller offers a price prior to the auction; whereas in the "Sell-It-No" format, it is the buyer. Both...