Many internet auction sites implement ascending-bid, second-price auctions. Empirically, last minute or quot;latequot; bidding is frequently observed in quot;hard-closequot; but not in quot;soft-closequot; versions of these auctions. In this paper, we introduce an independent private-value...

Registrars' offices at most universities face the daunting task of allocating course seats to students. Since demand exceeds supply for many courses, course allocation needs to be done equitably and efficiently. Many schools use bidding systems where student bids are used both to infer...

This paper experimentally investigates how individual preferences, through unrestricted deliberation, are aggregated into a group decision in two contexts: reciprocating gifts and choosing between lotteries. In both contexts, we find that median group members have a significant impact on the...