Designing Experimental Auctions for Marketing Research: The Effect of Values, Distributions, and Mechanisms on Incentives for Truthful Bidding

Q4 Business, Management and Accounting

Review of Marketing Science Pub Date : 2007-10-19 DOI:10.2202/1546-5616.1059

J. Lusk, C. Alexander, Matthew C. Rousu

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引用次数: 91

Abstract

Accurately estimating consumer preferences for new products is an arduous task made difficult by the fact that individuals tend to exhibit a number of biases when answering hypothetical survey questions. Experimental auctions have advantages over conventional methods of estimating consumer preferences because they provide incentives for consumers to truthfully reveal their preferences. However, there is currently little information available to determine which mechanism to select among the class of incentive compatible mechanisms. In this paper, we provide insight into the theoretical properties of several incentive compatible value elicitation mechanisms including the Becker, DeGroot, Marschak (BDM) mechanism, Vickrey nth price auctions, and the random nth price auction. In particular, we draw attention to the shapes of the payoff functions and illustrate that the mechanisms differ with respect to the expected cost of deviating from truthful bidding. We show that incentives for truthful bidding depend on the distribution of competing bidders' values and/or prices and individuals' true values for a good. Our approach can be viewed as a diagnostic tool to aid in selecting between preference elicitation mechanisms.

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为市场研究设计实验拍卖:价值、分配和机制对真实竞价激励的影响

准确估计消费者对新产品的偏好是一项艰巨的任务，因为个人在回答假设的调查问题时往往会表现出许多偏见。实验拍卖比传统的估计消费者偏好的方法有优势，因为它为消费者提供了真实地揭示他们偏好的激励。然而，目前关于在激励相容机制中选择哪一种机制的信息很少。本文对Becker, DeGroot, Marschak (BDM)机制、Vickrey n次价格拍卖和随机n次价格拍卖等几种激励相容价值激发机制的理论性质进行了分析。特别地，我们提请注意支付函数的形状，并说明了偏离真实出价的预期成本方面机制的不同。我们表明，诚实投标的激励取决于竞争投标人的价值和/或价格的分布以及个人对商品的真实价值。我们的方法可以被视为一种诊断工具，以帮助在偏好激发机制之间进行选择。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Review of Marketing Science Business, Management and Accounting-Marketing

CiteScore

1.10

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Review of Marketing Science (ROMS) is a peer-reviewed electronic-only journal whose mission is twofold: wide and rapid dissemination of the latest research in marketing, and one-stop review of important marketing research across the field, past and present. Unlike most marketing journals, ROMS is able to publish peer-reviewed articles immediately thanks to its electronic format. Electronic publication is designed to ensure speedy publication. It works in a very novel and simple way. An issue of ROMS opens and then closes after a year. All papers accepted during the year are part of the issue, and appear as soon as they are accepted. Combined with the rapid peer review process, this makes for quick dissemination.