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Contribution Details

Type Working Paper
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Collusion in Auctions for Emissions Permits: An Experimental Study
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Dallas Burtraw
  • Jacob Goeree
  • Charles A Holt
  • Erica Myers
  • Karen Palmer
  • William Shobe
Language
  • English
Institution University of Zurich
Series Name Working paper series / Institute for Empirical Research in Economics
Number No. 434
ISSN 1424-0459
Date 2009
Abstract Text Environmental markets have several institutional features that provide a new context for the use of auctions and that have not been studied previously. This paper reports on laboratory experiments testing three auction forms — uniform and discriminatory price sealed-bid auctions and an ascending clock auction. We test the ability of subjects to tacitly or explicitly collude in order to maximize profits. Our main result is that the discriminatory and uniform price auctions produce greater revenues than the clock auction, both with and without explicit communication. The clock appears to facilitate successful collusion, both because of its sequential structure and because it allows bidders to focus on one dimension of cooperation (quantity) rather than two (price and quantity).
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